On the Tea Party and Undenounced Lies

This was an email that turned into a blog post.

I believe the reporting of the phenomenon is way bigger than the phenomenon itself, and I feel that all except the most extreme tea party folks realize that the way to bring about change in this country is to rally popular support and elect different representatives. I definitely don't think the movement will end up in revolution. One thing that members of the tea party make clear is that they love the Constitution.

Having said that, it's all this inflammatory chest-thumping posturing that is ridiculous. This author is exactly right that the stupid things these white people are saying would scare the shit out of white people if black people were saying them. And the mainstream reporting of the phenomenon covers these right-wing talking heads with respect undeserving of the commentary they produce. The media should be loudly exposing the lies espoused by conservative commentators, not broadcasting them without comment. Congressmen and senators should be loudly denouncing their fellow members for this chest-thumping counterproductive revolutionary talk. And they should be doing it loudly because it is the right thing to do, not because it will score political points. And they should do it overtly, like calling out by name, and including the term "pants-on-fire" as many times as possible in their press conferences. Because these people should know that when they whip the public into a froth of fury, some radicals may actually believe the lies, and they'll start flying their planes into IRS buildings or start plotting to kill local police officers or something.

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.

What Housing Crisis?

The media is quite fond of overblowing the size of an event in order to attract more readership. This is already well known. Yet another example of this phenomenon is the housing "crisis", as everyone keeps calling it.

A couple of years ago it became common practice in the Eastern and Pacific Time Zones for banks to offer loans to customers who weren't really a lock to ever repay them. Now, a couple of years later, those particular loans aren't getting repaid, which should come as a shock to no one. Banks are suffering. In addition to that, home prices in the Eastern and Pacific Time Zones are falling back to a level they should have been at years ago. The houses for sale therefore can't be sold at a price the seller is willing to take, so houses sit on the market longer, which makes for fewer loans. Again, banks are suffering.

But somehow, in all of this, we're supposed to believe that individuals are weathering the housing "crisis" as poorly as the banks are. Individuals don't buy houses all that often, and when they do, it's usually because they want a place to live, not a place to make money off of. Yes, there are speculators who have thrived in hot markets like Las Vegas and Miami for the last few years, and for them, their business may be suffering. But if these speculators had the ability to buy several properties at once in any given year or month, they probably have enough capital to get through just about anything without being thrown out on the street. It may mean having to cut back on luxury cars. The local Ferrarri dealer may suffer (although this so far has not been the case).

There are also the studies reported on by the media that holiday shopping will be down because of the housing "crisis". Do individuals really take out second mortgages on the value of their homes to pay for Christmas gifts? I don't actually own a home, so I can't be sure, but that sounds extremely irresponsible to me, so much so that I suspect it's made up. Probably the biggest factor in holiday spending reduction is the lengthening of the holiday season, combined with the high gas prices and people not wanting to fight crowds of traffic on Black Friday. Advertisers have been putting jingle bells in their ads since just after Halloween, and if you're like my dad, you've already completed your Christmas shopping in order to avoid the holiday herds after Thanksgiving.

The biggest problem with the reported housing "crisis" is that unlike the markets of many things (gas, food, luxury airplanes), housing markets are always local. If a house sells for $200,000 in Colorado, the exact same floor plan could sell for $100,000 in Oklahoma or $400,000 in Las Vegas. It could also vary by which school district it lies in, the closeness of transportation and amenities, the neighborhood crime rate, the number of shade trees in the back yard and any number of other characteristics that are impossible to change. So while the media hypes up building starts and housing prices on a national scale, no houses are actually purchased on a national scale. In the Mountain and Central Time Zones, housing prices have remained stable, as they had been when the housing boom was on in the Pacific and Eastern Time Zones. If we lopped off those parts of the country, the media wouldn't even be able to talk of a housing crisis because there wouldn't be one.