Ryan Sager writes that pundits should listen to political scientists who have been on record for ages saying that Dems are going get creamed in the polls in November because of the economy. That's what people care about. Not health reform policy.
In this particular case, political scientists have gone on record, as
far back as September 2009, predicting that the Democrats would get
slaughtered in the Fall of 2010. The economy’s terrible, they are the
incumbent party in Congress, and a new president of their party has
just been elected. Any model of midterm elections would point in the
same direction: Big losses for Democrats….
The point is, we need to believe we’re in control. Political science tells everyone in politics the opposite: You’re not in control. The economy rules your fate — the rest is just pissing in the wind.
No wonder they prefer to keep their eyes closed and their fingers in their ears.
Andrew Sullivan says that nobody listens to political scientists, because "so many political scientists are quant-wonks you'd run from if you met
them in a Starbucks. And, yes, I have a PhD in political 'science'."
Apt. 11d 
“…pundits should listen to political scientists who have been on record for ages saying that Dems are going get creamed in the polls in November because of the economy. That’s what people care about. Not health reform policy.”
I don’t think these categories are entirely watertight. Yes, there’s practically Depression level unemployment in half a dozen states, but if you as a citizen are paying attention, you know that for good or ill, a huge new health bill will have an impact on the economy. Caterpillar recently announced that the bill would cost it $100 million in the first year:
http://www.chicagobreakingbusiness.com/2010/03/caterpillar-health-care-bill-would-cost-it-100m.html
You could hire a lot of people for $100 million a year.
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“You could hire a lot of people for $100 million a year.”
Then why haven’t they?
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Shouldn’t Sager have a little asterisk that says “past performance does not . . . future performance” or some other appropriate weasel words. I think the economy is the strongest weighting factor in national elections, and I’ve never understood that rationale. But, I also think that political science has far too little data in far too complex a system to make predictions about the future (as, I also believe about economists, and financial folks). I think there are broad guidelines about behavior, offered by psychology, social psychology, social science, political science, and economics, but that they don’t allow us to predict the behavior of populations, ala the Foundation series.
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…but if you as a citizen are paying attention,
But they aren’t paying attention. Not in the way that you think they are. It is mostly a retrospective assessment of the economy. To think about the future impact of the bill requires some basic economic theory. Those with an economic theory so basic that they don’t even know it is an economic theory (i.e. higher taxes hurt/don’t hurt growth) are not common and are not likely to be switching votes.
But, I also think that political science has far too little data in far too complex a system to make predictions about the future…
But this is where PS does have the data. It’s hardly an exact science, but linking of economic data to elections is one of the most developed parts of the field.
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I’m not saying that you should take everything a political scientist says at face value. For myself, I always ignore Neorealism and alumni fund raising letters.
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“Then why haven’t they?”
To put it differently, you have to fire a lot of employees (or move offshore) to get to $100 million.
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So many so-called “experts” have been wrong about so many things politically these past few years that I, personally, am going to go with the lady in the bangles with the crystal ball.
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Heard some back story on the radio today about Caterpillar. Turns out that they were getting a special subsidy from the federal government for their drug coverage for retirees (amounting to something like 28% of the cost of the plan). Then they got to deduct the entirety of the plan from their taxes. So they claimed the money that they received from the government as a business expense.
Neat trick, eh?
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