The Real Scandal: Akin Means It, Missourians Will Still Vote For Him

Two things on Republican responses to Akin:

• “We feel this is a case of ‘gotcha politics’. …Todd Akin is really getting a bad break here.” – Spokeswoman Connie Mackey for Tony Perkins’ Family Research Council.
• “[It’s not like] I’m the only person in public office who has suffered from foot-in-mouth disease.” – Todd Akin
• “I used the wrong words in the wrong way.” – Todd Akin

Using the wrong words in the wrong way would indicate that the message conveyed was not the message intended.   The message conveyed by Akin was that he believed women who are “legitimately raped” can’t get pregnant.  It is pretty clear that he intended to say women who are “forcibly raped” are less likely to get pregnant. He even said in his first apology on Mike Huckabee’s show that instead of “legitimately raped” he meant “forcibly raped.”  Oh, okay.  How is that better?  The outrage is still there, the science is still junk. 

Compare this to the faux outrage about Barack Obama’s statement from a few weeks ago, the one where he slipped in the phrase “if you’ve got a business” before returning to a phrase about building roads and bridges – “you didn’t build that”.   The message intended tangentially related to businesses; it was about government’s role in infrastructure that all businesses could take advantage of.  But the message – conveyed in a billion Republican-funded ads from now until November – was that Barack Obama doesn’t think business owners built their own businesses.  Ha ha, Barack, gotcha! 

If the punditocracy is playing “gotcha politics” and deliberately misinterpreting Akin’s words, it serves only to turn a false and offensive statement into a false, offensive, and ludicrous statement. 

• “Rep. Akin’s statement was so far out of bounds that he should resign the nomination for U.S. Senate in Missouri.”- Senator Scott Brown, R-Massachusetts, Washington, D.C. politician
• “I am very concerned -- and I know many other conservatives are as well, because they have all written me today -- that if you stay in this race, … this could put the entire state of Missouri, this Senate seat, and even the top of the ticket, in jeopardy in Missouri” – Sean Hannity, New York-based conservative talk show host
• "Notable that Rex Elsass & Nick Everhart, Akin consultants, are in Columbus OH and a bit immune from Beltway CW/storm” – Ben Smith, Buzzfeed, Washington, D.C.-based journalist

You know who is immune from Missouri-based non-storm?  Ben Smith of Buzzfeed.  Akin's views may be out of the mainstream of America, but they fit right in with the mainstream of religious conservative thought.  And the conservative voters of Missouri are the only ones that Akin is beholden to.  

All this scorn from “establishment Republicans” plays right into his hands.  It’s like the whole of America’s political journalists forgot what happened two years ago when the cranky Tea Party ran on a platform of setting fire to the Washington establishment, and they won!  Or even how Claire McCaskill herself manipulated the Republican electorate in Missouri just a few weeks ago by calling Akin a dangerous outsider, knowing this was just the sort of label that would get right-wingers to vote for Akin over more electable opponents.  And now he’s supposed to be in danger of putting the entire state of Missouri in jeopardy of falling into Democrats’ hands?  Everyone knew he was going to say some crazy shit at some point in this campaign.  Claire McCaskill sure knew it!  I mean, all I’m saying is that Missouri’s Republicans all knew what they were getting when they voted for Akin in the primary, so I don’t think Missouri is any more or less “in jeopardy” than on primary day.  Of course he's sticking it out, Scott Brown et al.  Your condemnation only fuels him!

 My hope is that widespread exposure to Akin’s words will increase Democratic turnout in Missouri, because it’s not like Republicans aren’t going to show up anyways. 

Kid Gloves and Non-Traditional Constituencies

A few weeks ago, Bill Clinton chided the media for what he thought was the media's kid glove treatment of Barack Obama. Never fond of criticism, the media retorted with several news cycles worth of "Why Can't Hillary Control Husband?" and "Bill to Innocent Reporter: 'Shame On You!'". But like many things the media overblows, there is actually a kernel of truth to the former President's accusations.

Today news analysts have been talking about John McCain's multiple decisive victories in yesterday's primaries, but they have been withholding their declaration of McCain's inevitability as the Republican Party presidential nominee, citing that he won most of his big victories in blue states, or states that would not support a Republican nominee in the general election no matter how many tax cuts he voted against. This is seen as a negative against McCain, the thinking goes. He'll get blown out in states where he's actually popular in the primaries, and people won't vote for him in states where he's not popular in the primaries. But the same analysts have said that Barack Obama is the most electable candidate on the Democratic side because he is popular in traditionally red states.

While Hillary Clinton was dancing last night with the big shining jewels of the Democratic party such as California, New Jersey, New York and Massachusetts, Obama was slumming it with the red state puu-puu platter of Alaska, Alabama, Georgia, North Dakota, Utah and Idaho. Of the 27 states that have had Democratic primaries or caucuses so far*, 17 voted for Bush in 2000, and Obama has won 10 of them to Clinton's 7. If you look at the electoral votes of those states with Democratic primaries and caucuses so far, there are 143 red state electoral votes and 178 blue state electoral votes, if you count red states as "States that voted for George W. Bush in 2000". While Clinton and Obama have nearly evenly split the red state electoral votes (73 for Obama, 70 for Clinton), Hillary Clinton has an overwhelming total of blue state electoral votes (130 to 48). If you define red state / blue state by the 2004 election, the split is even more lopsided (134 to 41).

Using the same analysis for the Republican side, McCain has won 67 red state electoral votes (most of which come from Florida), compared to Huckabee's 46 and Romney's 31. McCain however has won a ton of blue state electoral votes, 132, compared to Huckabee's 7 and Romney's 43.

So if winning 132 blue state electoral vote equivalents hurts Republican McCain, why doesn't losing 130 of them hurt Democrat Obama in the media's eyes? Is it kid gloves? Or am I just doing way too much math on things that don't actually matter?



*Not counting New Mexico, where yet another hangup in the vote counting had delayed results. There's always a problem with voting in New Mexico for some reason *cough corruption cough cough*, but that's a post for another time.

Super Tuesday Came, and I Brought My Coat

I love election nights! It mixes three of my favorite things all together: arithmetic, politics and maps. Last night may have only been a jumble of state primaries, but there were so many of them that it felt like a national election, with states being falsely projected for candidates and analysts struggling with delegate math. And like the 2000 national election, it wasn't decisive at all.

Nationally, it is a tight race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama with the Democratic Party nomination entirely up for grabs. But in Oklahoma, Hillary Clinton won fairly decisively. Analysts have chalked it up to the fact that Oklahoma borders Arkansas, one of Hillary's many home states, and therefore Hillary would be a regional favorite. This may be partially true, especially as to why Hillary was on top of the polls before anyone started campaigning, but I think a factor just as important to that was that Barack Obama not only avoided campaigning here in person, but Oklahoma was also one of only two Super Tuesday states where he didn't run television ads. Hillary may have won big, but Obama certainly didn't try to woo any Sooners to his side.

Analysts also chalked up the reason Obama did so poorly here to our closed primary, which shuts out independents and left-leaning Republicans, an important demographic for Obama. What analysts didn't notice was that this effect was magnified by the demographics of the Democratic party in this state. Like many southerners, most Oklahomans were registered Democrats before the 70s, even though they still voted very conservatively. During the 70s and after, a change occurred so that most Oklahomans started registering Republican. This means that most of Oklahoma's registered Democrats are now over 65, a demographic that tends to vote in this election for Hillary. 42% of the Democratic primary voters were 60 and over, and they voted overwhelmingly for Clinton (64% to 23%).

Analysts were also surprised that John Edwards, a candidate who dropped out of the presidential race last week, did so well here in Oklahoma and speculated that the reason was that Oklahomans still remembered him fondly from his close 2nd place in the state in 2004. I think the real reason Edwards was able to pull more than 10% and even beat Obama in some counties was that he actually campaigned here. No other democratic candidate actually set foot in the state, although Bill Clinton did drop by OU's campus. Of course, maybe Oklahoma democrats just don't pay attention to current events and didn't realize that Edwards had left the building. After all it is monster truck season; voters may have had other things on their minds.

On the Republican side, John McCain won a close race over Mike Huckabee, as predicted by the polls. I'm not exactly sure why, though. It would seem that Oklahoma should have been Huckabee country, what with all our Baptist churches and light-up crosses on the sides of our tall buildings. But I guess there is a limit to how far evangelical votes can go. Although, like all the southern states, had there been a candidate named Romnabee, a Baptist minister with business experience, he would already be the next unified Republican party presidential candidate.

13 Brief Points on Why the Fair Tax Sucks

If he were to become president, Mike Huckabee has proposed a national sales tax of 23% on all items. This flat sales tax would come with a fixed rebate said to cover "essential goods and services" that everyone would be allowed to have as a sort of way to rig some progressiveness into the tax. Huckabee also proposes to eliminate the IRS, and repeal the 16th Amendment, which states that Congress shall have the power to collect taxes from any source of income without the tax revenue having to be proportional to the population of the state from which it is derived. I think this is a terrible idea, and here's why:

1) Any sales tax is a regressive tax. Rich guy Gallant and middle class guy Goofus eat the same amount of food, drive the same amount of miles per day and use the same amount of medical care. The difference is after Goofus gets home for the week, he's got a couple hundred dollars of spending money, while Gallant has a couple tens of thousands. A sales tax on that food, gas and medical care means a much higher proportion of Goofus's money goes to taxes than does Gallant's money, which imposes a higher burden on Goofus than on Gallant. A progressive income tax attempts to impose a more equivalent financial burden on both Goofus and Gallant.

2) The figure "23%" is awfully misleading. The way our state and local sales taxes are described is a tax on top of the price of the good; i.e., if an item costs $100 and there's a 6% sales tax, the amount of money coming out of your wallet is $106. The 6% is a tax-exclusive description. So if an item costs $100, and you pay $129.87 for it, wouldn't it seem like you were having a 29.87% sales tax imposed upon you? Not according to Mike Huckabee and the proponents of the Fair Tax. The 23% sales tax described by www.fairtax.org is a tax-inclusive description as an attempt to compare it with an income tax. In reality, it's a 29.87% sales tax. But 30% sounds effing huge, so they play with the math in order to fool a bunch of people.

3) Most of us would end up paying higher taxes. For people living in poverty, the rebate would just about eliminate any of their tax burden thanks to the fixed rebate jiggered into the plan. For people making more than $200,000 a year, their personal tax burden would fall anywhere from 45% to 53%, while for people who earn between $15,000 and $50,000, the tax burden would increase as much as 7%, as I found out when I used www.fairtax.org 's own tax calculator. (Numbers from President's Advisory Panel for Federal Tax Reform)

4) The IRS couldn't possibly be eliminated. The government runs on revenue. It has to have an agency to collect it! You can call that agency whatever you'd like, but it would still be a massive government bureaucracy. In the case of the Fair Tax, you'd need two bureaucracies: one tax-collecting agency to collect sales taxes from businesses, and another tax-distributing agency to dole out those monthly rebates.

5) A President can set an agenda, but a President cannot change the Constitution alone. As we all recall from Government class, it takes 2/3rds of Congress plus 3/4ths of the states to ratify a new constitutional amendment. So in the years that it would take to officially eliminate Congresses ability to collect individual income taxes, we'd get all kinds of new sales taxes, resulting in potential double taxation. Yippee!

Okay, I'm running out of time, so the next points will be short.

6) Don't you notice taxes a lot more when you see a price and you have to pay an amount that is substantially higher than that price, rather than when you see a check with your name on it?

7) There are doubts as to whether or not the Fair Tax will even be revenue neutral at 30%, especially whether or not it will be in the future.

8) Oh yeah, all those state sales and income taxes that we currently have would of course still be on the books. So for states with income taxes, you'd still have to file a return every year, and you'd still have to pay an additional 5-8% for any goods and services purchased. And this is supposed to be a tax reduction?

9) The rebates do vary by number of children, but a single mother would have to have three children to equal the rebate given to a childless couple. Awesome for me, but seems anything but Fair.

10) Retirees have had their income taxed all their lives, and now that they've developed a nest egg, it will now be taxed when they try to spend it. Seems a little unFair, no?

11) High income earners are able to save much more than low income earners. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the lowest quintile of earners spends 198% of their income, while the highest quintile spends only 61%. Therefore, any sales tax would penalize low incomes much more than high incomes. While the Fair Tax would encourage saving money and not going beyond one's limits (something this country apparently needs), it's just not possible for a lot of people to save money, especially when you're just starting out in life.

12) Fair Tax people promise that the price of goods and services will fall once the income tax is eliminated. I'm not an economist, but don't wages also have to fall in order for that to happen?

13) In order for it to be revenue-neutral, the 23% rate assumes that no fraud, evasion, or EBaying exists.

Slate's Primary Prediction Competition

Okay, so I've got Edwards and Huckabee in the pool for tonight caucus in Iowa, with Obama and Romney to place and Clinton and McCain to show.

Unfair Tax

I just went to the Fair Tax site, since I had not heard of the term until reading about the most recent Republican debate. Mike Huckabee and Alan Keyes want to eliminate the IRS and the 16th Amendment and establish a national sales tax. There are many fallacies to this idea, and I promise to blog about them later, but I just wanted to point out that I checked out the Fair Tax Calculator to estimate all the glorious tax savings that could be mine if only we'd get rid of those progressive taxes. I'd end up paying $2,700 more if the "Fair Tax" was enabled and income tax was repealed. And I'd be willing to bet that people poorer than me would pay an even higher percentage of their income with the "Fair Tax" in place. But then, poor people don't vote in Republican primaries.

Huckabee's Run Is No Surprise

The media shouldn't be at all surprised about the surgence of Mike Huckabee in many polls, including in Iowa, where this poll says he's leading all Republican candidates. The first indications of this surge was after the Iowa straw poll back in August, and even though it's a made-up contest where candidates get to give money to people to vote for them and the richest guy in the race won, it seemed to mean a lot to Huckabee. But even besides this, the media should have recognized that voters at large and especially Iowa Republicans dislike four things in candidates: being a senator, being a putz, being a bullshitter, and being a New Yorker / New Englander.

For some reason, there are always several members of the U.S. Senate who believe that being a U.S. Senator is a stepping stone to the presidency. You senators in this presidential race are only fooling yourselves. The only person to ascend to the office of the President directly from being a member of the Senate since Warren G. Harding was John F. Kennedy, and, well, as the Lloyd Bentsen famously said, you're no Jack Kennedy. Fortunately for Mike Huckabee, he happens to be a governor.

No one likes a putz, which is the reason Bill Richardson is slipping in polls. Being a putz is hard to define, but being overweight and tongue tied in debates are two key indicators. Fortunately for Mike Huckabee, he is perhaps best known for getting his lard butt in shape through diet and exercise, and no longer carries any visible putz-like qualities. Huckabee is certainly less putzy than Fred Thompson, which is the other candidate most like him in his views.

Being a bull-shitter may work for some, but its usually best to save all your best bullshitting for when you have already achieved the highest office you're gunning for. This will hurt Mitt Romney when the primaries come around, and it may even hurt Rudy Giuliani, one of our generations finest bullshitters (and I mean that mostly as a compliment). Fortunately for Mike Huckabee, he is viewed as a straight-talker, even though somebody else already stole that idea for their bus.

Lastly, New Yorkers and New Englanders are always viewed more scrutinizingly by Republicans and Independents. It's generally the opinion of the rest of the country that those guys are obnoxious, a viewpoint reinforced by ESPN's incessant coverage of the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry and the existence of Ben Affleck. It's why John Kerry lost the last election (we didn't realize how much of a putz he was until we thought about it later), it's why Michael Dukakis never stood a chance, and it's why Hillary Clinton won't win the general election. Okay, that and the bullshitting thing. Iowa Republicans have been looking for a candidate with flyover country cred, but without being too twangy (Thompson) or Strangeloveian (Tom Tancredo). And now, as John Madden would say, boom! Mike Huckabee hits the hole and keeps his feet moving!