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On that "shocking" birther poll
You’ve probably seen that Research 2000/Daily Kos poll making the rounds today, the one that finds hilariously large quantities of Republicans and southerns expressing openness to birtherism. The data is pretty striking.
It’s provoked a lot of discussion all over the liberal blogs about how Republicans are a regional party that’s coming increasingly unmoored from reality. Well, no kidding. But — sorry to rain on the parade — this poll isn’t such a good indicator of that phenomenon, from a survey research perspective. In fact its descriptive value of birtherism is nearly zero.
Remember, most people in the U.S. have probably never heard of this particular conspiracy theory (Lou Dobbs’s radio audience doesn’t exactly rival the NFL). I doubt 90% of the American population has ever given so much as a thought to Obama’s birth certificate, and for good reason. This is a tiny, lunatic fringe belief.
But if …
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Mission creep
And now, a Post In Which I Link Two Bloggers You Probably Read Anyway (PIWILTBYPRA):
Yes, like Digby says, it is pretty frustrating that Democrats let the argument slide from “universal health care” to “cheap health care,” and from the moral dimension to the fiscal one. From a progressive perspective, not to mention a messaging perspective, that blows.
On the other hand, Kevin Drum points out that the impact of the reform itself on socioeconomic norms might be far larger and more important than the impact of the reform’s framing and intent on socioeconomic norms. If we accustom the public to fair health care (an utterly new idea around these parts), more and better policy will follow later.
So in the meantime, even if we have to sacrifice the public option and other good stuff to the slavering Blue Dog horde, well, dance with the ones what brung ya…
This has …
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State Budget Crises Will Have Lasting Effects
Ed Kilgore points out that California’s not alone in facing fiscal armageddon — other states aren’t far behind:
If current trends hold, states are expected to encounter an even higher level of shortfalls–$180 billion–in Fiscal Year 2011, for which they are just beginning to make plans. They are far past the ability to borrow from reserve funds, cancel major new investments, or cut out “waste.” We’re talking serious cuts in services and employment, and the kind of tax increases that no one likes and that could combine with spending cuts to further depress state and even national economies.
For all the handwringing about the federal budget deficit, state deficits are the real killer. They’re almost impossible to reduce.
State spending is a lot harder to cut than federal spending, both politically and practically, because it (literally) hits closer to home. The bulk of state spending is taken up by very necessary, basic …
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Gates Update
I now consider the matter settled.
(For those few of you who don’t get West Side Story references, join the culturally literate and watch this–
–and if you’re already culturally literate, watch it anyway.)
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Unnecessary thoughts on the Gates incident
Gahhh. I had really been hoping I could confine my commentary on Professor Gates and the Case of the Endlessly Debatable Arrest to my post from Monday, back when this story was just a local news item in the Boston Globe, before it glommed, remora-like, onto the entire infrastructure of talk radio and TV commentary. At the time, I said something about how in my experience, Harvard/Cambridge is caught up in a whole bunch of nasty elitism and exclusion, which leads to super-awkward tensions like this one.
And that’s still, ultimately, my most basic opinion on the subject: it’s a symptom of how Harvard has all this puffed-up pride in its Prestige and Heritage and Architecture and whatever, yet is utterly and deliberately ignorant of the arrogance and class conflict that that pride — not to mention its predominantly wealthy faculty and student body — engenders. To me, it reads like Gates was really trying to say how dare you accuse me of being a poor and uneducated plebe?, but it being Harvard where anything to do with class is wrongthink, he wound up talking about race instead and getting frustrated. (Which is not an uncommon experience for Harvard people, though the context is usually a little more academic.)
IF ONLY that could suffice for my opinion on the matter. But here I am, and here you are. We, meaning not just bloggers and commentators but literally everyone I’ve talked to in the past couple days, seem to have an unquenchable thirst for commentary on this subject; maybe that’s because it dramatizes an undercurrent of racial and class resentment in a simple and provocative way, or maybe just because it doesn’t make our brains hurt like health care reform does, but it has a hold on us either way. So let me throw out a couple more things that might help you clarify your thinking, if you’re interested. After the jump.
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