Eric The Blue

Electoral distortion

In the midterm election this year, Republican candidates for US House won, in the aggregate, 51.6% of the vote, compared to 45.5% for Democrats.  This outcome was widely regarded as a "rout," a Republican "wave," and indeed if Republicans prevail in three outstanding races so close that a winner is yet to be declared they will hold more seats than at any time since the 71st Congress convened in 1929.

Another way of putting it would be to observe that Republicans, by getting just under 52% of the vote, are going to be holding 57% of the seats in the US House. That the composition of the Congress is more Republican than the electorate is a persistent, under-reported fact about recent American politics.  For example, in the last congressional election before this one, Democratic candidates for US House received 49.2% of the vote to 48.0% for Republicans.  But this narrow "victory" for the Democrats resulted in a fairly substantial (234-201) Republican majority in the House.  I remember John Boehner crowing that "the American people" chose the Republicans to run the House of Representatives.  But, since a plurality of "the American people" had voted for a Democrat, it's hard to see how exactly it could be that they had "chosen" to be governed by the Republicans.

The country is full of congressional districts that are 65% Democratic and even more that are 55% Republican.  Consequently, hundreds of uncompetetive races hurdle toward a foretold result that reflects more truly the interests of those who draw the boundaries than those of people whose participation in "the process" is limited to voting. 

In the Senate, the situation is worse.  Each state, no matter how big or small, elects two senators to represent it.  When "the most august legislative body in the world" has heard from the representatives of California and those of Wyoming, the vote is invariably a 2-2 tie.  Since this undemocratic arrangement is required by our Constitution, there is virtually no hope of reforming it, even though it was essentially a sop for southerners who feared that slavery would be abolished at the polls by voters in the more populous North.  In the twenty-second Federalist Paper, Alexander Hamilton wrote:

Every idea of proportion and every rule of fair representation conspire to condemn a principle, which gives to Rhode Island an equal weight in the scale of power with Massachusetts, or Connecticut, or New York; and to Deleware an equal voice in the national deliberations with Pennsylvania, or Virginia, or North Carolina. Its operation contradicts the fundamental maxim of republican government, which requires that the sense of the majority should prevail. Sophistry may reply, that sovereigns are equal, and that a majority of the votes of the States will be a majority of confederated America. But this kind of logical legerdemain will never counteract the plain suggestions of justice and common-sense. It may happen that this majority of States is a small minority of the people of America. . . .

He continues in a manner that almost leads you to believe that he anticipated the rule concerning the filibuster:

To give a minority a negative upon the majority (which is always the case where more than a majority is requisite to a decision), is, in its tendency, to subject the sense of the greater number to that of the lesser. Congress, from the nonattendance of a few States, have been frequently in the situation of a Polish diet, where a single veto has been sufficient to put a stop to all their movements. A sixtieth part of the Union, which is about the proportion of Delaware and Rhode Island, has several times been able to oppose an entire bar to its operations. This is one of those refinements which, in practice, has an effect the reverse of what is expected from it in theory. The necessity of unanimity in public bodies, or of something approaching towards it, has been founded upon a supposition that it would contribute to security. But its real operation is to embarrass the administration, to destroy the energy of the government, and to substitute the pleasure, caprice, or artifices of an insignificant, turbulent, or corrupt junto, to the regular deliberations and decisions of a respectable majority. In those emergencies of a nation, in which the goodness or badness, the weakness or strength of its government, is of the greatest importance, there is commonly a necessity for action. The public business must, in some way or other, go forward. If a pertinacious minority can control the opinion of a majority, respecting the best mode of conducting it, the majority, in order that something may be done, must conform to the views of the minority; and thus the sense of the smaller number will overrule that of the greater, and give a tone to the national proceedings. Hence, tedious delays; continual negotiation and intrigue; contemptible compromises of the public good.

But even Hamilton did not foresee elections awash in cash infused by wealthy contributors exercising their constitutionally protected "freedoms."  Only worry warts think that the recipients of their largesse will be disinclined to enact the democratic reforms that are desperately needed.

 

 

At the movies: Gone Girl

Abraham Lincoln, who married a nut-case, was, according to The Wit and Wisdom of Abraham Lincoln on my father's bookshelf, fond of quoting the maxim about "hugging a bad bargain all the tighter" before remarking that, with respect to  his particular bad bargain, taking that advice could be almost pleasant.  But in this movie a slightly paunchy Ben Affleck, having made the same mistake, gets his hugs elsewhere, and his nut-case wife frames him for the murder of herself.  She planned to commit suicide and allow her body to wash up on the river shore, but things happen, bloody outlandish things, and she ends up getting washed back into her marriage. 

Marriage as black hole, with same gravitational force. Directed by David Fincher, best known for The Social Network, thereby eliciting from Anthony Lane the following question: "Who could have predicted that a film about murder, betrayal, and deception would be less exciting than a film about a Web site?" 

Games geeks play

Being a geek, I sometimes, like during halftime of televised football games, find myself inventing little games of chance and then wondering about the best strategy.  For example, supposing someone said that they would give me a hundred thousand dollars or, alternatively, a million dollars if I correctly call a coin flip but nothing if I call it wrong.  What to do?

I find that I have an immediate emotional response that's followed by a more considered reflection nudging me toward the opposite choice, which in turn is followed by a still more considered reflection that pushes me back toward my initial inclination.

My first thought is to take the hundred grand.  The prospect of losing a sum of money that large on a coin flip is too painful to contemplate.  But then the lizard mind is overruled by the one that can do math.  The expected return on the option involving a coin flip ($500,000) is five times greater than the option I'm choosing.  Since $100,000 < $500,000, I should put aside my emotional impulses and make  the obvious right choice.

But then I think:  what exactly is meant by "right choice"?  If my goal is to maximize my expected return, then, yes, I obviously have to try for the million.  It seems, however, that I'm missing another obvious consideration relating to the concept of utility.  For someone who is supposed to pay back, this coming Thursday, $80,000 that he doesn't have to a loan shark with mob connections, taking the sure hundred grand is the easy, right choice.  I think it might be the right choice for me, too.  But I'm not sure it is.  A hundred thousand would be very useful but not really life-changing.  I'd still have to go to work, still have to care what my boss thinks of me. Is that so bad though?  It's kind of a perplexing problem.  If you magnified by ten--I can take a million dollars or a fifty-fifty chance at $10 million--it would be easy.  Put down the coin, hand over the certified check.

In other games, the perplexity is all in the math.  Supposing someone proposed, for a fee, to flip a coin until it turns up heads, then pay me $2 if the first flip is a head, $4 if the first head occurs on the second flip, $8 if on the third, and so on.  (If the first head occurs on the nth trial, I get 2^n dollars.)  I should agree to play this game if the fee is below what price?

 

The election result, and interpretation of same

My general view is that there has been too much made of the result of the midterm election.  I hope Republicans do not overreach in governance to the same degree that they (and the perpetually hyperventilating media) have in their interpretation of its meaning.  If they do, they will likely be defeated in two years, and, if they don't, they will likely be defeated in two years anyway.  Herewith some more or less random observations that I think tend to support this view.

1. It's been known for a long time that this would be a difficult year for Democrats.  Six years ago--the length of a Senate term--they won every Senate election anyone thought they might win and a few that no one thought they could win.  Which is why they were this year defending seats in states like Louisiana, North Carolina, South Dakota, Montana, and Alaska.  In 2016, the line-up turns over: there will be 34 US Senate races, 24 of them for seats currently held by Republicans, seven of those in states Obama carried twice.  If my life depended upon naming the party that will have a majority in the Senate in 2017, I'd feel nervous, but I also know which one I'd choose.  The same goes for the Presidency. 

2.  For a long time, polling confirmed what geography indicated.  Yet for some reason people seem stunned--or, in the case of Republicans, giddy--now that it's happened.  It's as if a weatherman predicted  snow and cold in January and then everyone is amazed when the weather turns snowy and cold.

3. There are historical reasons, too, for supposing that what happened on Tuesday is less than extraordinary.  The midterm election held in the sixth year of a two-term Presidency is typically awful for the President's party.  In 1966, LBJ's Democrats lost 47 seats in the House.  Eight years earlier, President Eisenhower's Republicans had lost 48 House seats and 13 Senate seats.  Granted, there are exceptions to the rule, as in 1998, when Republicans were making asses of themselves by impeaching Clinton.  But add the so-called "six-year itch" to the list of factors working in favor of the GOP. 

4. In the recent past, Republicans have had the upper hand and blown it by nominating crackpots who spoke their mind on such topics as sexual assault and pregnancy.  It appears they have dropped that losing habit.  Instead, they downplay their support for absurd "Personhood Amendments," or purport to have changed their minds about them "at the state level."  Meanwhile, the Democratic candidate in Kentucky, jabbering about the sacred secret ballot, declined to say whether she voted for Obama.  And, in Iowa, the Democratic candidate, a lawyer, sneered that the retiring Republican whose job he wanted is just a farm boy who never went to law school. 

This is my backhanded way of admitting that candidates matter and, this time 'round, the Republican ones were less manifestly more ridiculous. 

5. This morning, on NPR, Ken Rudin, the so-called Political Junkie, allowed the truth of item 3 above before insisting, in defense of the Republicans Rising theme, "But this just feels different."  It's hard to account for the "feelings" of others but I wonder whether he should consider the possibility that "this feels different" mainly because it occurred earlier this week, as opposed to a couple of generations ago.  Anyway, I am more inclined to trust data.  We just had fifteen Senate elections in states Obama carried twice.  Democrats won twelve of them, many by wide margins.  Of congressional districts carried by Obama that also elected a Democrat to the US  House two years ago, Republicans were able to win ten--ten, out of more than 200. 

I agree with Ryan Lizza.  The election doesn't show that Republicans have turned a corner.  It shows that the country is divided, that the division is geographical, that "control" of the Senate is apt to switch back and forth as the roster of states with Senate elections rotates in two-year cycles, that Republicans will continue to hold the House mainly on account of the way congressional boundaries are drawn, and that the country's changing demographics give an edge to the Democrats in presidential elections.  Oh, and nothing useful is likely to get done.

Since we already should have known all that, the gesticulating isn't warranted.

The election

A spot on NPR plugging their election coverage used the phrase "fight for control of the Senate."  I don't think "control" is the right word.  The question of whether the Democrats will remain in the majority is getting a lot of attention.  Isn't it perfectly obvious, though, that being in the majority and having control are very different things?  Thanks to the rule about cloture, a supermajority of 60 is needed to "control" the Senate.  If you could control the Senate with a 55-45 majority, we'd hear less about "gridlock," and possibly have some meaningful restrictions on gun ownership.

It appears increasingly likely that Democrats will be relegated to minority status in both House and Senate.  As I've noted before, a Democratic majority in the House requires something tending toward a Democratic landslide in the country as a whole, and that isn't happening this year.  Regarding the Senate, I suggested awhile ago that the chance of Democrats retaining the majority depended upon women--those who vote (or don't) and the ones trying to defend their seats or win Republican ones.  I highlighted four:  Democratic incumbents Jeanne Shaheen in New Hampshire and Kay Hagan in North Carolina, and Democratic challengers Alison Lundergan Grimes in Kentucky and Michelle Nunn in Georgia.  Lundergan Grimes appears to be trailing in her race, against the blandly execrable Mitch McConnell, by a modest but steady margin.  The other three races are all very close.  Shaheen and Hagan are perhaps slightly ahead, while Nunn is, if anything, trailing by a point or two.   Let's suppose Shaheen and Hagan pull through and Nunn falls short.  A split in these four red-hued states might look like a decent result for the Democrats.  The problem, however, is that, moving west, the red hue to the battle grounds persists: Democrats have no chance of holding on to their seats in South Dakota or Montana, and are if anything less than even money in five other races for seats they currently hold--in Louisiana, Arkansas, Iowa, Colorado, and Alaska. 

The geography and demographics favor Republicans.  But does it really matter?  Congress isn't doing anything now (unless you count such empty gestures as voting to repeal "Obamacare"), and it's hard to see why that would change if Republicans become the majority party in the Senate.  What are they going to do?  Try to match their colleagues in the House for number of staged votes to repeal Obamacare?   But what would they replace it with?  The thing they admit to liking (you can't be denied coverage because of a previously existing condition) won't work without the thing they say they can't abide (the "individual mandate").  They aren't serious.  For them, Ebola, which has so far killed one person in our country, is a fit subject for national hysteria, while measures to curb the scourge of gun violence are--praise God!--prohibited by the Constitution.

In North Carolina, Hagan's opponent recently declared, in a debate:

Ladies and gentlemen, we've got an Ebola outbreak.  We have bad actors that can come across our border.  We need to seal the border.

This may prove to be a winning "message."  Possibly it is even a stroke of genius, for keeping Ebola-stricken Mexicans out of the country is a promise the GOP should be able to keep.