I wonder if my committee will accept this Jay Manifold post in lieu of the conclusions chapter of my dissertation. After all, it basically says what I want to say, although far more succinctly and without the obligatory citations to seventeen billion political scientists. Quoth Jay:

The Scrappleface material aside, I rise to the defense of my fellow citizens on this one. Like many other polls, it can be made to look very bad. The lessons we should be drawing, however, are not the usual people-are-stupid, everybody-should-have-to-know-this-stuff sort of thing, but are more related to simple common sense:

1. Suppose the poll had instead taken the form of a true/false test with a list of, say, 40 possible names of Cabinet departments. How different would the results have been? I’m sure that only a small percentage would have gotten them all correct; but I surmise that most respondents would have gotten most of them right, a far different result than the one presented.
2. Also, I like to apply the body-count test. Are we stepping over bodies in the streets every morning as a result of [insert failing of American public here]? No? Then maybe, just maybe, it’s not a big deal.
3. According to the poll, if you can name more than 11 Cabinet departments, you are in a minority of 1%; if you can name them all, you’re probably a solid 3σ away from the statistical mean. In other words, you are a weirdo.
4. In fact, if you’re complaining about public ignorance about almost any political data, while demonstrating your familiarity with such data, you’re not only a weirdo, you’re a control freak whose idea of a healthier polity is one with a whole bunch of weird little copies of you in it.

Needless to say, the above describes almost all current-events bloggers.

Or, as I put it in the current iteration of my draft conclusions chapter:

It is also possible that what matters isn’t what voters know about politics, but rather what they understand about politics. Knowledge may simply be a byproduct of understanding among those citizens most exposed to political information; in other words, knowledge is only important to the extent that higher levels of knowledge about politics—as measured by, for example, answers to the notorious “trivia questions” about politics that are regularly used as evidence that the public has insufficient levels of civic education—generally reflect greater understanding of politics. If that is the case, civic education efforts may improve voters’ reasoning processes even if they don’t lead to greater retention of the minutiae of politics by citizens over the long term.

I resisted the urge, however, to accuse Michael Delli Carpini and Scott Keeter of wanting to build clone armies of themselves.

As Steven Taylor notes, GOP candidate Ernie Fletcher has won Kentucky’s open gubernatorial seat, and Haley Barbour has a fairly robust lead in Mississippi—so robust, in fact, that Barbour made a victory speech just after midnight, despite the slim remaining chance that he will not receive the absolute majority of the vote required to avoid the legislature deciding the election (as they did in Ronnie Musgrove’s victory over Mike Parker in 1999).

John Cole credits the successes of Fletcher and Barbour to DNC head Terry MacAuliffe. However, I’d probably chalk it up to something more fundamental: in the mass media and Internet age, the Democratic and Republican parties have become increasingly nationalized, with little scope for state parties to tack too far from the national party’s position. Even in Mississippi, a state where “yellow dog Democrats” have had a lot of sway, that’s slowly fading as Democrats retire or change parties. Take, for example, one political scientist’s observations on the election*:

John Bruce, a political science professor at the University of Mississippi, said though Musgrove and Barbour ran a tough campaign with ads criticizing each other, the two candidates took similar positions on many issues.

Bruce said he took statements about gun ownership, abortion and other issues off campaign Web sites and quizzed his students about which candidate had made the statements. He said many thought the statements came from Barbour — but all the positions came from Musgrove.

“They’re both conservative,” Bruce said. “They’re almost identical on a lot of issues.”

And “almost identical” southern Democrats are increasingly finding that southern voters will choose the real thing—Republicans—over conservative Democrats who increasingly have to rely on the support of groups—like African-Americans, state employees, and transplanted Northern liberals—who aren’t conservative at all.

That isn’t to say that parties can’t field successful candidates in states where their national ideology isn’t competitive—the most obvious case in point would be the election of Arnold Schwarzenegger in California. But they’re going to be in an uphill struggle, without the ability to bring in “name” fellow partisans to support them, and they’re going to need to work much harder than they’d have had to in the past to convince local voters that they are truly “independent” of the national party. Ronnie Musgrove couldn’t do either, and ultimately that is what cost him this election.

PhotoDude has more on this theme, tying it into the whole Dean flag flap (via InstaPundit), and Stephen Green notes the GOP surge, but encourages Republicans not to get cocky.

The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal has an election results page up on its website covering northeast Mississippi, including Oxford and Lafayette County. So far, it’s all zeros; polls closed about 45 minutes ago, so some results should start trickling out soon.

Dan Drezner has been blogging up a storm (also here) on the Center for Public Integrity study and the Iraq reconstruction contracts issue. I’ve added what little I can in his comments, so just go forth and read the posts.

Howie Dean’s latest gaffe has sparked a substantial discussion in the blogosphere about the so-called “Southern Strategy”; Steven Taylor has something close to the post I’d write if I had more time.

From the scholarly perspective, I think most political scientists have attributed the maybe-realignment of the 1960s to racial issues (see, for example, the book-length treatments by Carmines and Stimson and Huckfeldt and Sprague), but Abramowitz (1992 AJPS, I think; might have been JOP) makes a strong case that those issues weren’t driving Republican success in the 1980s—although he leaves the question of the 1960s aside, and I don’t think people in political science were particularly enamoured with his use of exploratory factor analysis to demonstrate his point. However, I think there’s a paper to be written either trying to apply Abramowitz’s methodology to the 1960s-era data or looking at it over the history of the ANES using the Cumulative file; unfortunately, from a publication standpoint, I think realignment is no longer the sexy topic it was in the late 80s and early 90s.

I wrapped up* the final substantive chapter of my dissertation Saturday evening, then spent a few hours down at the Square downing a few $1 PBRs. Once I’ve given a copy to my committee chair sometime today, I’ll probably post a link to a PDF of it here in the blog.

For the morbidly curious, it currently weighs in at 123 printed pages, not including about 10 pages of front matter—the title page, acknowledgements, dedication, abstract, table of contents, and lists of figures and tables—and the yet-to-be-written conclusions chapter. It is typeset entirely using the gatech-thesis class in pdflatex in 12-point Palatino, with the included Trellis graphs generated by R’s pdf graphics driver.

More evidence that Howie Dean is moving right after securing the support of the Atrios fringe: he’s daring to say that just maybe all Southerners who fly the Confederate battle flag aren’t necessarily racists—an article of common sense that nonetheless escapes most national Democrats, who apparently don’t bother talking to their fellow partisans—except the ones who wear the Quixotic “I’m a progressive” label like some sort of pathetic badge of honor—in states like Mississippi and Georgia.

Oh yes, Dean’s now flirting with the DLC wing of the party:

Yesterday, Dean said he wants to create a biracial coalition in the South. “For my fellow Democratic opponents to sink to this level is really tragic,” he said. “The only way we’re going to beat George Bush is if southern white working families and African American working families come together under the Democratic tent.”

I still think the “Dean is a moderate” meme is a load of flaming crap, and his idea of national security policy is worse than a joke. I think he’d roll over for the gun controllers in Congress in a heartbeat (not that I’m hugely invested in that issue). And I generally believe that anyone who can excite large numbers of college undergrads about his campaign is prima facie unsuitable for high office. But if he keeps saying sensible things like this I might actually have to reconsider my overall assessment of the guy.

Mind you, I’m still voting for Sharpton in the primary, because I’d love nothing more than to see the Democratic Party have to deal with the consequences of spending years coddling this race-baiting fool.

Rick Henderson is puzzled by the “Libertarians for Dean” phenomenon, including its backing by some of his former colleagues at Reason.

Brock noted Cori Dauber’s inauspicious start at the Conspiracy yesterday, and I agree that her blogging has been a bit uneven. However, her critique of the San Francisco Chronicle’s fawning piece on Robert Fisk is spot-on. But I think the key paragraph in the article is on Fisk’s attitude toward objective reporting:

Fisk doesn’t believe in the concept, calling it a specious idea that, as practiced by American reporters, produces dull and predictable writing weighed down by obfuscating comments from official government sources.

Of course, a lot of critics of the American media—on both the left and right—would argue that American reporters don’t practice “objective reporting” either.

My recommended reading for this month, The Adventures of Amos and Andy: A Social History of an American Phenomenon, holds a special place in my heart—it’s the first real scholarly book I ever read, at the tender age of 15, while I was otherwise bored out of my mind at a family reunion in Richmond. It was written by Melvin Patrick Ely, a cousin of mine (first cousin, once removed, to be precise). I think that book, more than anything else, is what set me on the path to an academic career. The least I can do in return is hopefully steer a few bucks in royalties his way…

Glenn Reynolds links to a Lynxx Pherrett dissection of the alleged ‘pay-for-play’ nature of Iraqi reconstruction contracts. The key graf, I think, is:

How do I know CPI is dealing from a stacked-deck? As Marshall Brodien said, "It's easy, once you know the secret!" CPI only looked at companies that were awarded contracts, then examined the companies' political contribution history and any connections to current or former government officials. What CPI never looked at, and according to their methodology never attempted to look at, was the political contribution and governmental connection histories of the losing submitters. In other words, there is nothing against which their results can be compared. Businesses make political contributions — we know that. People leave government service and go to work in the private sector — we know that. Thus, no matter what major company wins a contract, it is likely that they have 1) made political donations in the past—CPI researched contributions all the way back to 1990—and 2) employ some former government officials. Unless CPI can show that the contract winners made larger political contributions and employed more or higher-level ex-government officials, their report cannot support Lewis' charge of "a stench of political favoritism and cronyism."

In other words, CPI selected on the dependent variable. Quality social science here, folks…

Dan Drezner has more.

Quite a yawner of a weekend ahead in the conference, except the Ole Miss-USC and Florida-Georgia games. Since I went 6-0 last week, I’ll try this format again…

• OLE MISS over South Carolina. Apparently it’s trendy to pick the Gamecocks for the upset, but I just don’t see it.
• AUBURN over Louisiana-Monroe. I think…
• Florida over Georgia (in Jacksonville). It’s the trendy pick, but I think it’s right.
• TENNESSEE over Duke. The official “duh” pick of the week.
• Arkansas over KENTUCKY. Not really sure why; the Sagarin ratings at least agree with me.
• LOUSIANA STATE over Louisiana Tech. Unless the Tech team that beat Michigan State (Nick Saban’s old squad) comes calling, that is…

Next week, things get a little more interesting as the Rebels travel to Auburn and UT takes a trip to Coral Gables to face now-#2 Miami.

Robert Garcia Tagorda (Boomshock), in response to Matthew Yglesias, tries to figure out why he prefers InstaPundit to Atrios, in comparison to Matt’s stated reason why he prefers Atrios to Glenn Reynolds (InstaPundit):

Quoth Matthew (via Robert):

Now Josh [Chafetz] is right, Atrios isn’t exactly your source for civil discourse. On the other hand, neither is InstaPundit which Josh doesn’t seem to mind so much and which earns a permalink on his sidebar. Let me suggest that the problem Josh has with Atrios has less to do with civility than with the fact that they disagree regarding the main subjects of Josh’s interests. Personally, I like Atrios a great deal, though he’s uncivil, and I like InstaPundit a little, too, though he’s also uncivil. The secret here is that I agree with Atrios about most things, and I agree with Glenn Reynolds about a few things.

Robert argues there’s another reason:

But Matt overlooks one thing: partisanship. Atrios and Glenn both have biases, but the former’s confrontational style comes under the Democratic banner. ...

Partisanship gives things a different twist. It exacerbates ideological biases, because it introduces an element of “us-versus-them.” It’s much harder to debate somebody who fights not simply for a set of principles and ideas but also for a particular team. Partisanship, in and of itself, is not necessarily reprehensible. However, when you fuse it with an in-your-face attitude, as Atrios does, the entire package becomes very hard to consume.

I think there’s a third reason: Glenn doesn’t have comments. A lot of people seem to like comment sections on blogs—and sometimes they do add some value. But if you go to a site like Atrios, CalPundit, Balloon Juice, or LGF, you’ll find that the comments are generally filled with two groups: the trolls and the “amen corner.” And I think comment sections are just naturally polarizing that way; I’ve caught myself trolling at times, even though generally speaking I’m not a huge fan of trolls. Occasionally a comment thread does add a lot of value—indeed, if it weren’t for that occasional value, I’d probably never bother reading the comments at some of these sites (well, CalPundit and Balloon Juice; I don’t read either Atrios or LGF), and I’d probably enjoy the experience of reading them more on balance.

Now, I realize I probably open myself up to a charge of hypocrisy here; after all, I often post in other peoples’ comment sections. 95% of the time, it’s because I just don’t feel like what I have to say is worth a proper post here at SN, or you’d need the context of the original comment thread to understand it anyway.

All this, I suppose, is a long-winded way of saying “don’t expect a comments section here anytime soon.” But, if you have posted something relevant to something I’ve said, feel free to use the TrackBack feature to let SN’s readers—and me—know. If you don’t use a TrackBack-capable blogging tool, you can use the linked manual trackback form; thanks to Kevin of Wizbang for that.

Glenn Reynolds weighs in.

For those who are interested in such things, here’s a new graph from my dissertation. More on this topic soon…

David Bernstein is happy Charles Pickering’s nomination went down in flames today; Matthew Stinson isn’t. I said my piece on the topic in June, but I’ll repeat it here:

[M]y message to Democrats remains the same: if you believe he’s unfit to serve on the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals [on the grounds that he treats minorities unfairly], by definition he’s also unfit to serve as a district court judge. Be consistent, call for his impeachment and removal from office, and find some additional evidence, and then I might take your objections seriously. Until then, the whole situation reeks of inside-the-beltway politics and “easy,” gratuitous Mississippi bashing.

Or, as Matthew puts it:

There’s no principle in opposing Pickering’s nomination, simply partisanship. Democrats invent the Pickering-as-racist bogeyman charge because it’s a much better story than them saying that Pickering is “unfit” to be a judge simply because he’s a Republican.

Now—unlike Matthew—I don’t particularly care if Pickering becomes a judge or not. But if Democrats continue to play games with the filibuster, they’re either going to find the shoe on the other foot (do you honestly see Orrin Hatch rolling over for Howie Dean when he tries to put Stephen Reinhardt on the Supreme Court?) or themselves out their last real weapon against Republican hegemony—because I guarantee you that if the Republicans can scrape together sixty Senate seats, the filibuster as we know it will be gone from the Senate rules faster than you can say “Jim Jeffords’ office is a converted broomcloset.”

Scipio, at The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy, blames Trent Lott for the whole debacle. Yeah, that’s about right…

Brock is stumped by the fact that politicians get a lot of speeding tickets but don’t get in a lot of accidents. I don’t find that entirely confusing, as politicians probably drive a lot more than the average person—going back and forth to the state capital, for example—and do more of that driving on safer roads—like interstates—than the average person does (the highest accident rates are typically on two-lane roads). Since interstates are both safer and more heavily patrolled than other roads, people who use them are likely to both have more speeding tickets and less accidents than the average person.

CalPundit is shocked, simply shocked to learn that the people who run Fox News send out a daily memo on how each day’s stories will be covered. Of course, the print media don’t need similar memos; that’s why they have these mysterious people called “editors” who read and edit everything before it goes into print.

In other shocking news, I hear that some media outlets use “focus groups” to help select news anchors, rather than simply hiring the best-qualified journalists for the job.

Steven Taylor, here and here, and Matthew Stinson both do me the favor of explaining why I’m not a huge fan of the Stars and Bars Southern Cross. Steven says it far more eloquently than I could:

My question to those who are adamantly in favor of the flag: why? What does it uniquely mean to you about your Southern heritage? And even if it means something dear to your heart, isn’t whatever it is you wish to extol being tainted by what the flag signifies to others?

I think a lot of white Southerners do, deep down, recognize that; hence why I often hear comments like “the blacks are just pretending they’re offended by the flag” or “I know one black guy who isn’t offended, so I really don’t think blacks in general are.” So I think the key to change here is not necessarily to get whites to change their views about the flag, but rather to convince them that blacks’ views on the flag are genuinely-held, rather than a fabrication of the NAACP and the SCLC and professional race-baiters like Al Sharpton.

Meanwhile, if you’re not entirely sick of the gubernatorial campaign, you can read this Emily Wagster Pettus piece on the Rebel flag’s role in the gubernatorial race. And, as a special bonus, Amy Tuck finally signed that affidavit saying she’d never had an abortion (no, don’t ask… I don’t even pretend to understand what that’s all about).

I normally don’t bother with announcing blogroll changes or additions, but I have to make an exception for Matt’s spiffy new Movable Type-powered site®. Très slick.

The downside is that those of you with alpha-blogroll switched on will have to scroll down to visit him in the future, since he’s forfeited his lead positon in the sort order to Michele. (How do you switch on—or off—alpha-blogroll? Simply visit the handy-dandy config page where you can also set your timezone and preferred stylesheet.)

Mississippi goes to the polls in six days to elect a governor. And, if we’re really lucky, the people—not the House of Representatives—will elect this one.

On the issues I personally care about, the candidates are about indistinguishable. As Sid Salter points out, Ronnie Musgrove is essentially running—at least in white precincts—as a Republican who accidentally got the Democratic nomination. Maybe that’s just as well; for better or worse, there aren’t many Mississippians who share my, dare I say extremist, views on personal and economic liberty. There just aren’t that many Mississippians who are pro-choice (never mind that you can’t get a legal abortion in this state outside of Jackson, making the abortion issue essentially moot), pro-gay marriage, anti-Stars and Bars, and against burdensome economic regulations (like the absurd situation that has essentially shut down the distribution of wine and liquor in the state because our state liquor monopoly can’t make its computers work right). I’d worry if the major parties thought they could run a candidate who would appeal to me.

Ironically, if Ronnie Musgrove lived up to the reputation his detractors pinned on him, I might actually be tempted to vote for him. The truth of the matter, though, is that Musgrove barely lifted a finger to promote the new flag; he endorsed it and then went into virtual hiding until the referendum went down in flames in April 2001. Don’t get me wrong—I think the referendum was doomed to failure no matter how much effort was put into backing it. And I recognize that the referendum was largely engineered to forestall the initiative drive to amend the constitution to make the current flag virtually unalterable—an option still on the table should the legislature decide to mess with the flag again. But make no mistake: Ronnie Musgrove did no more than was absolutely required to keep his ass from getting grief from the Legislative Black Caucus.

Similarly, if Ronnie Musgrove had so much as lifted a finger to help blacks in this state I might be tempted to vote for him. Now, I understand Ronnie’s going to get 90% of the black vote just for having a (D) next to his name on the ballot. What has he done to deserve it? Turning the health department into a racial fiefdom may have helped some well-connected blacks in Jackson, but it’s hard to see how a sharecropper in the Delta benefited from that.

The bottom line is: Ronnie Musgrove isn’t a liberal, in any sense of the word. He’s only a Democrat because that’s what you needed to be to get elected to the state senate in Panola County. His own press is 100% accurate: “conservative, independent.” He makes 1980s-era Al Gore (not to be confused with the Y2K model) look like a McGovernik. Which is a shame, because you could do worse than 80s Al Gore.

Which brings me to what’s behind Door #2: Haley Barbour. If Musgrove is “conservative, independent,” Barbour is “conservative, conservative.” He is what he is. Those who criticize him for BlackHawkGate seem to miss the point; if Ronnie’s schedule had worked out properly, there’d be matching photos up at the Council of Conservative Citizens’ website: one with Haley’s beaming mug, and another with Ronnie’s right next to it. My general assessment of Barbour is that he’s a cipher as far as what he’d do in office. Oddly enough (for those who stereotype such things), Barbour’s Washington experience makes him by far the more worldly of the two candidates.

And, ultimately, I think that’s what this state needs. If only Nixon could go to China, maybe only someone like Barbour can come back to Mississippi. Someone needs to tell my fellow Mississippians that it ain’t 1962 any more, and that message isn’t going to be well-received coming from a Democrat. I don’t know if Haley Barbour is the man to deliver that message, but I sure as hell know that Ronnie Musgrove isn’t. So for governor, Haley Barbour (R) it is.

In other races:

• In the battle of the barking moonbats, aka the lieutenant governor’s race, I’ll be voting for Barbara Blackmon (D), mainly because I know she won’t win.
• For secretary of state, Eric Clark (D/I) because he seems competent enough. Wish he’d do something about all the Java on his pages though…
• For attorney general, I honestly don’t know.
• Auditor: Phil Bryant (R/I).
• Treasurer: Gary Anderson (D).
• Agriculture commissioner: dunno, don’t care; they’re all State graduates anyway…
• Insurance commissioner: don’t know.
• Public service commissioner, northern district: we have a public service commission?
• Transportation commissioner, northern district: Bill Minor (D).
• District attorney: I don’t even know which district I’m in. Sigh. Guess I have to figure that out.
• State senator: Gray Tollison (D)—I think former Oxford mayor Pat Lamar’s a twit. Demerits for his brother running my water company into the ground, though.
• State representative: some jackass who shares my name (the joy of spending the $15 filing fee to run… priceless).
• Constitutional amendment #1 (deborking the College Board): no, because I’m in a contrarian mood.
• County offices: no clue.

I thought the only dilemma I was going to be faced with this week was figuring out which side I despised more in the Colonel Reb Foundation versus Richard Barrett dispute (it’s Barrett, by a hair, although I have to give mad props to the Foundation for giving Barrett a new excuse to come to Ole Miss in the first place). Now, however, comes word that Donald Luskin is allegedly siccing a lawyer on Atrios; in this one, I think I have to feel sorry for the lawyer.

They’ve apparently kissed and made up. How sweet…

I probably will have next-to-nothing to say for the next 24 hours too, but I can’t pass up a free chance to swipe some of Kate’s traffic Thursday. There’s a not-so-secret project nearing fruition here at the Oxford branch of SN; that’s all I’m going to say (I don’t want to jinx it…).

CalPundit notes the demise of the inept Iain Duncan-Smith as leader of Britain’s Conservative Party. Four or five years ago I would have recommended Chris Patten for the thankless job of replacing him, but I think he’s since caught Mad Bureaucrat Disease (aka Brussels Spongiform Encephalopathy). Ah well, there’s always Lord Jeffrey Archer—as a convicted pathological liar, he’s well-qualified to be a British political leader.

I’m familiar with “run to the left in the primaries, then to the right once you’ve secured the nomination” as a viable campaign strategy for presidential candidates; however, Howard Dean may be going a bit far, n'est-ce que pas? That is, unless the Klan vote really is the swing vote in the South…

I don’t actually share Sharpton’s view that Dean’s agenda is “anti-black”—at least, it is no more (or less) anti-black than the Democratic agenda at large. Still, I found the story moderately amusing…

Meanwhile, Kate notes that Dean is pandering to the “metrosexual” voting block, a demographic apparently defined as straight men who’ve seen at least one episode of “Queer Eye…” or “Playmakers.”

Sunday’s Memphis Commercial Appeal endorsed Ronnie Musgrove for Mississippi governor. I’m sure that’ll help Musgrove big time in DeSoto County—a county full of people who moved there to escape from the establishment, “let’s all hold hands and sing Kumbaya” mentality the CA fosters north of the border.

Insult-the-CA-day continues here at Signifying Nothing as we learn that the Commercial Appeal has decided—stop the presses—to rename its website to CommercialAppeal.com. Whether this is a concession that the overtly boosterish “GoMemphis.com” was a bad fit for a city with a massive inferiority complex is left unsaid.