Tag Archives: election

The N Factor

One of the more prestigious political science journal just published an issue devoted to prognostications about the upcoming Presidential election. A variety of academics used their favored forecasting methodologies, and predicted the likely winner. The results ranged from “comfortably Obama” to “very, very close” to one “Romney by a nose.” (I’ve noted that “scientific” methods are a lot more accurate after the election has occurred.)

The problem with forecasting models is that they rarely take into account elements like likability; heretofore, they have not had to confront massive spending by SuperPacs, either. And even the scholars who employ them hedge their bets.

One element that was not measurable before 2008–and has now been measured–is the influence of race, as in the race of the candidates. Any sentient being knows that much of the anti-Obama animus is race-based (the “birthers” and people convinced that the President is a Muslim are so obviously substituting those charges for the N word). What has been unclear is the extent to which that racism motivates votes. In that journal’s issue on the election, one article analyzed data from the 2008 election, and concluded that his race had cost Obama five percent of the vote–that is, that Obama’s percentage of the popular vote would have been five percent higher had he been white. The author of that article forecast a slightly better result this time around; according to his calculations, racism will “only” cost Obama three percentage points this time around.

Of course, in a very close election, three percent is enough.

A lot of folks are in denial about the extent to which race influences attitudes about the President. They shrug off the more obvious indicators, like the guy in the photo taken at a Romney rally, whose tee shirt read “Put the white back in the White House.” I have friends whose unease with the President is pretty clearly based upon his “otherness,” but who don’t recognize or admit to themselves that such feelings are a part of their political calculus.

If we are inclined to dismiss the influence of racism, a look at Gallup’s polling may serve as a wake-up call. Gallup has been an “outlier” lately, showing Romney five or six points ahead in the popular vote. When you look at the internals, you see an interesting phenomenon: in Gallup’s numbers, Obama holds modest leads in the Northeast, Midwest and West. Romney leads in the South–by twenty-two points.

Maybe we shouldn’t have fought the civil war–and just let the South go.

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The Devil You Know….

A couple of political truisms–which I have always accepted as “givens”–went up in smoke last night. The first was that at-large candidates win or lose based upon the performance of their party’s mayoral candidate. The second was that in close races, victory is largely a matter of getting your vote out.

In Indianapolis yesterday, the Democrats got their votes out. They took back the Council, including the at-large seats. But enough of those Democrats scratched Melina Kennedy to allow Ballard a second term.

There will undoubtedly be lots of second-guessing and post-election analysis. Here’s my two-cents-worth:  the sorts of things about the Ballard Administration that appall so many of us who watch government closely are not the sorts of things that are apparent to the average voter (and the media largely ignored those issues during his term). No one was enthusiastic about him–he never got out of the low 40s in internal polls–but the average voter was aware of no strong reason to oppose him. Meanwhile, Melina Kennedy never gave people a strong reason to vote for her–her ads did not adequately introduce her to the voters before they began attacking Ballard, and the attack ads were, as Paul Ogden has noted, insufficiently specific; they failed to explain what was wrong with the cozy deals they alluded to–they simply attacked.

Given two candidates seen as interchangeable, voters opted for the one with whom they were familiar.

The good news is that a Democratic Council should be able to block the sorts of cozy deals and poor policy choices that have characterized Ballard’s tenure. The danger is that the Council will simply act out of partisanship, rather than principle. In either case, the next four years are likely to be contentious.

A mediocre (at best) mayor and a hostile council aren’t exactly a recipe for progress.

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Ballard’s Brand of Socialism

This morning, Matt Tully criticized Melina Kennedy’s campaign for recent, negative ads. Essentially, he said that she had already demonstrated that she was the superior candidate, and that the ads were beneath her–that Ballard, whatever his deficiencies, is a decent guy and didn’t deserve the negative characterizations.

I agree with Tully about negative ads, which are never nuanced arguments about policy. I don’t watch much live television, and thanks to TIVO, rarely watch campaign ads, but I’ve seen distasteful stuff from both campaigns, and we all know why: they work. That’s not an endorsement of the tactic, just a recognition of reality.

And the reality that the Kennedy campaign has not–and probably cannot–address is that, yes, Ballard is a decent guy, but so clueless that he is not really running the city. From what my remaining friends in the GOP tell me, soon after his surprising election, the “usual suspects” swooped in to “help” the neophyte and not-so-incidentally help themselves at taxpayer expense.

I’ve written before about the parking meter fiasco that enriched ACS (a company closely tied to the Mayor’s closest advisers), and I won’t belabor that fifty-year giveaway again (although from my point of view, it is reason enough to vote for Melina Kennedy).

I haven’t previously examined the equally scandalous deal struck for the parking garage in Broad Ripple. As Paul Ogden has amply documented, this is yet another example of what I’ve come to call “Ballard socialism.” The basic story is that taxpayers are paying to build a garage that the city then simply gives to the developer. We pay 6.35 million for a facility that will be owned 100% by Keystone Development (where Paul Okeson, former Deputy Mayor in the Ballard Administration, now works). The developer gets 100% of the parking revenues and 100% of the rent from the commercial space.

As Ogden points out, there is no requirement that the developer put a single penny into this deal.

Why do I call this “Ballard socialism”? Socialism is a term that simply means spreading the cost–we share costs of such services as police and fire protection among all of us, via taxes; we pool the costs of automobile accidents via insurance. But in the Ballard Administration, as a disillusioned Republican friend of mine recently complained, we turn this time-honored approach on its head. We socialize the risk–but we privatize the profits.

I am perfectly willing to believe that Greg Ballard does not understand the details of these sweetheart contracts. But he’s the Mayor, and it is not unfair to hold him responsible for the actions of his administration–actions that will cost the city dearly in an era of diminishing resources.

Cynics will say that city government has always operated to benefit political insiders, and it’s true that people who know people always have an edge. But I’ve lived in Indianapolis my whole adult life; I’ve been involved in both Republican and Democratic politics since I was twenty, and I have never seen anything on this scale. Whether it’s corruption or ineptitude, we need to clean house.

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