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How Democrats, Republicans compare

sfgate.com

11–14 of 14 posts

Re: How Democrats, Republicans compare

#11
post #2

Correlation is not causation. Sure, people who are wealthier and live in more stable societies tend to vote Democrat; but that doesn't mean that electing Democrat representatives causes the societies to be wealthier and more stable. Working hard and being wealthy are also correlated, but that doesn't imply that you can cause people to work hard by giving them lots of money. (Lest anyone accuse me of political bias he…

Your first line is a truism that your main argument doesn't support, and your third paragraph is an appeal to "common sense" that isn't supported by data. Ignoring those, your argument boils down to your opinion that voting has no impact on wealth or stability. That cannot be true, at least not unless you subscribe to a deterministic world view, surely?

His argument is not that voting has no impact on wealth or stability, it's that you can't deconvolve voting's impact on wealth from wealth's impact on voting.

One could imagine a scenario where a Party X state had vastly impoverished natural resources compared to the typical Party Y state. It's conceivable that typical Party Y policies would have a worse outcome than typical Party X ones in that particular state, even if states that implement Party Y policies tend to have better outcomes overall. It's furthermore conceivable that even states that implement Party Y policies could do better if they had instead implemented Party X ones.

The flaw in this article isn't political, it's statistical.

edit: anonymized parties in the second paragraph.

Re: How Democrats, Republicans compare

#12
The 'quiz' barely convinced me: * It's Congress that has shaped public policy in the United States for most of the post-FDR period, not the administration in the White House.

* Does public policy have tangible, next-day consequences? For example, is the population suddenly healthier, now that the vaunted Health Insurance reform has passed?

Re: How Democrats, Republicans compare

#13
post #4
post #3

What's the "interesting new phenomenon" that this political article elucidates to make it not off-topic?

Attempting to measure the performance of a political party statistically and without being influenced by the personalities involved is interesting and new. The particular approach described is horrendously flawed, but it seems possible that there is good discussion to be had in proposing a better methodology. Flag it if you think it's off-topic, and then something mysterious and not well documented might or might not…

"Attempting to measure the performance of a political party statistically and without being influenced by the personalities involved is interesting and new."

I've been presented with these exact same arguments back in High School, which was in the early 80s. You can skew the numbers to favor Republicans by just choosing the data ranges from when the politicians actually joined office.

In over two decades of being involved in politics in some capacity I've found that the only difference between the two major parties is how they want to legislate control of my life.

Re: How Democrats, Republicans compare

#14
post #6

Not that I disagree with the conclusion of the article, but I bet you can come up with an equally impressive set of stats showing the Republican party coming out ahead. If the article wasn't so one sided it would have been stronger.

Go ahead: come up with such a set.
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