A Popular Myth - The Illegitimacy of "Popular Vote" Claims

The 2008 presidential contest is shaping up to be a potential nail-biter, with polls showing voters nearly evenly split between Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama. Because of how tight the race is, we are once again faced with the possibility of the winner of the electoral college “losing the popular vote”. This is causing concern on the part of many analysts and pundits, who recall one of the controversies of the 2000 election: claims that George W. Bush wasn’t the real winner of the election because he “lost the popular vote”. Some are likewise saying that if McCain or Obama win the electoral college without “winning the popular vote” that the result will be “illegitimate” or the new president will “lack a mandate”.

Even knowledgeable observers seem to have come to accept “winning the popular vote” as some sort of standard, valid means of assessing voter preferences. For example, Nate Silver, the skilled statistician of the election modeling site fivethirtyeight.com, recently raised the issue of what the impact might be of a tied electoral college result being decided by a Democrat-controlled Congress, in the event that John McCain “won the popular vote”.

My problem with all of this is betrayed by my use of quotation marks above: “winning the popular vote” doesn’t mean what most people think it does, and the conclusions that people draw from this bogus metric are myths. Worse, the claims made about the popular vote not only are incorrect, they are very damaging to the electoral process and how the nation assesses election outcomes.

Were the Bronx Bombers “Cheated”?

The year is 1960, and the underdog Pittsburgh Pirates face off against the feared New York Yankees in the World Series. The Pirates take the first game in a squeaker, 6-4, before being blown out in the next two games, the Yankees winning 16-3 and 10-0 to take the lead. The Pirates aren’t demoralized, though – they fight back, winning the next two games 3-2 and 5-2 on the strength of good pitching. But the Bronx Bombers strike again, demolishing the Pirates 12-0 to tie the series at three games each. The pivotal seventh game goes into the bottom of the ninth inning, when Pirate Bill Mazeroski hits a pitch over the left field wall to win the series for Pittsburgh by a score of 10-9.

But wait a minute. Did Pittsburgh really win? I mean, the game of baseball is all about scoring runs, isn’t it? And if we add up the runs, it’s clear the Yankees were better: they outscored Pittsburgh 55-27. Clearly the Yankees were really the winners – the Pirates’ World Series victory was illegitimate!

Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? After all, the goal of each team was to win four games, not get the most runs over the course of the series. Yet this is exactly what people do when they talk about “winning the popular vote”. This measure is like adding up runs in a baseball series: it is tallying the votes of 51 separate contests, which is not equivalent to properly measuring popular vote across an entire nation.

The Rules Determine the Goal; the Goal Determines the Strategy

What’s wrong with summing the votes from the various states and the District of Columbia and using those numbers as an indicator of which candidate got the most votes? The problem is the same in politics as it is in baseball: the teams go after a goal based on the rules put in place before the contest begins. As mentioned, the Pirates and Yankees went into their series knowing that the objective was to win four games, not get the most total runs. Similarly, both political parties go into a presidential election knowing that the goal is 270 electoral votes, not getting 50.1% of the popular vote.

In turn, the goal dictates the strategy used in the contest. In both baseball and politics, each team has only a limited number of resources, and to win, they must allocate them in the most effective manner possible. Consider game 3 of the 1960 World Series: the Pirates were already down 10-0 before the game was half over. They might not have necessarily given up on winning such a game, but since they knew they had a long series ahead of them, they might well have tried to save some of their pitching strength for later games. Similarly, the Yankees probably wouldn’t have pulled out all the stops to try to score as many runs as possible, since the game was well in hand. Both teams would try much harder in a close game where they each had to fight hard to win.

This happens in exactly the same manner in presidential elections. Consider the three states with the most voters in the nation: California, Texas and New York. Have you seen Barack Obama or John McCain running ads or campaigning heavily in these places? Of course not. Why? Because they are “laughers”, like a 16-3 baseball game. Both Obama and McCain are trying to win electoral votes, not popular votes, and since the outcome of these three states is already clear, they won’t waste resources on them. They will save their advertising money and other tools for the “battleground” states like Ohio, Colorado and Florida, which are equivalent to “pitching duels” in baseball.

The very same distortions occur when it comes to voters and their enthusiasm levels: people know when their presidential vote matters a great deal, and when it doesn’t, and this impacts turn-out rates. For example, which state is more likely to have a high percentage of voters for this year’s presidential election: Nevada, where John McCain currently holds a lead of less than 5%, or Oklahoma, where his lead is over 30%?

I Come to Neither Bury Nor Praise the Electoral College

There are arguments both for and against eliminating the electoral college and going to a straight across-the-nation single vote for president, but this article is not intended to argue for or against this change. Rather, the point is that unless and until we do make this move, any conclusions drawn about the “popular vote” are not only not legally binding, they are deceptive and damaging to assessments of presidential elections.

If we really want to elect a president based on who would win a majority of votes in a straight popular vote election across the nation, then we need to change the rules in advance. With the new goal made clear, both sides could then develop strategies intended to pursue it. And a straight popular vote presidential election would be a very different one from what we are accustomed to.

In such a vote, individual states cease to matter, and the objective would be to appeal to masses of voters directly. Both Republicans and Democrats would be heavily invested in the big states, because that’s where the people are. Even if John McCain were behind by a lot in states like California and New York, it would be worthwhile for him to campaign there to narrow Obama’s lead. The same would be true of Obama in states like Texas or Georgia.

We would see huge advertising efforts nationwide, because every vote would be worth the same amount in any state. We would not see massive advertising efforts in small states like New Hampshire and Nevada. In fact, we’d probably see little state-targeted advertising at all.

But this is not how we do things today, and until a change occurs, any “popular vote” numbers drawn by summations of 51 independent state tallies are bogus. Some might argue that even if these popular vote sums aren't perfect, we should use them anyway because that's the best measure of popular vote sentiment that we have, but this is a fallacy. Bad information is worse than no information – we are far better off accepting the fact that we don't know what the true popular vote totals would be across the nation, than drawing harmful, incorrect conclusions from invalid numbers.

NY Times to McCain Campaign: Don't Whine at Us For Doing the Job You Wouldn't

The New York Times is defending itself against the whining of the GOP, and it's about time:

In our instant-news and celebrity- obsessed culture, Palin went from Sarah Who to conservative rock star in less than a week. In less than two months, she could be elected vice president to serve under the oldest president, at 72, ever elected to a first term, and one with a history of recurring melanoma. Intense, independent scrutiny by The Times and the rest of the news media of Palin’s background, character and record was inevitable and right.
...

By choosing a running mate unknown to most of the nation, and doing so just before the Republican National Convention, John McCain made it inevitable that there would be a frantic media vetting. It turns out that Palin was for the Bridge to Nowhere before she was against it, that she sent e-mail complaining about a lack of disciplinary action against a state trooper who was going through a messy custody battle with her sister, and that she never made a decision as commander in chief of the Alaska National Guard, one of her qualifications cited by McCain.

The drip-drip-drip of these stories seems like partisanship to Palin’s partisans. But they fill out the picture of who she is, and they represent a free press doing its job, investigating a candidate who might one day be the leader of the Free World.

When faced with bald-faced liars such as John McCain, Americans rely on the media to expose the truth. They must not allow themselves to be cowed by the whiny tactics of self-serving political operatives.

Celebrity for Thee, but Not for Me

Over at fivethirtyeight.com, a site I really enjoy watching for its analysis and insights, Nate Silver made the very valid point that Sarah Palin's surprise announcement has caused her celebrity to eclipse Obama's. We were then treated to several days of ridiculous hype over Palin, culminating with possibly the world's most overwrought congratulations ever heaped upon a former sportscaster reading someone else's speech off a teleprompter.

Given all that, you might have thought that, at least, the silly McCain campaign strategy of calling Obama a "celebrity" would be over. Well, you would be wrong.

I'd ask if the McCain campaign has any shame if the answer weren't already so painfully obvious.

Hillary's Chance for True Redemption

Much has been made about the bitter Democratic primary fight this year between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, which I summarize simply as the "Clintobama Melodrama". Senator Clinton has been (rightly) criticized for stepping over the line of politeness normally expected of intra-party warfare, by going after her opponent with attacks that could be exploited by the opposition in the general election. And as we've seen, they have been.

Human nature means that if Obama fails in his 2008 bid, memory of this will largely have faded by 2012, but some of Obama's more ardent -- and no doubt by that point angry -- supporters will waste no time to bring it up again. Clinton's performance at the DNC likely helped dull some of the criticism earlier levied against her, but many felt it was more obligatory than genuine.

I've never been a big fan of Senator Clinton, for reasons I won't go into here. I was one of those angered by her behavior in the primaries and not terribly impressed by her lukewarm behavior since. But in fairness to her, the defeat must have been crushing, and it's very hard to play second fiddle to someone you feel superior to.

Enter Sarah Palin. Making this choice was supposed to rally the GOP base, and there's every indication that it will. However, it is having at least as much of the same effect on the Democrats as well. That includes Senator Clinton, who unsurprisingly appears to be rather unimpressed with the idea of a completely unqualified far-right-wing token exploiting all of her hard work.

There's a big difference in attitude and energy when you are fighting for something you really believe in, as opposed to someone you are told you need to support. The manipulation of the media by the Republicans to scare off attacks as "sexist" has been woefully effective, and one big way to blunt this is via attacks from woman surrogates. Of all these, Hillary Clinton is uniquely positioned to make a difference.

What this means is that Hillary Clinton has a real and large chance to prove herself to her party and her nation. Her experience and her sharpness can be of very great use to Barack Obama and the Democrats in blunting some of the mythos surrounding Sarah Palin and her attempt to co-opt the electoral stage. Over the next two months, Clinton can undo any damage she did to Obama in the primaries, cement her standing as a real leader, and greatly improve her own potential for higher office in the future.

For the first time in my life, I am eager to become a big Hillary Clinton fan.

Essay: Smart Guilt

What was particularly notable about the campaign that propelled George W. Bush into power in 2000 was that it was the first time I can recall a candidate who didn’t try to convince us to vote for him because he excelled, but rather because he did not. Al Gore undeniably had superior qualifications, experience and intelligence, but this did not phase the Republicans one bit. In fact, they said flatly not only that these weren’t assets of Gore’s, but rather, liabilities.

And it worked. I, like many Americans, bought into the notions of common sense being better than education, and of folksy charm being a better indicator of presidential success than intelligence. I detested Gore’s pomposity, and felt that Bush was someone I could relate to. He promised bipartisanship, non-interventionism and a practical hands-off approach to small government. I believed it all.

I was fooled, but not just because Bush did the exact opposite of everything he promised: I was wrong about the entire basis by which I favored Bush in the first place. I chose my candidate based on personal likeability rather than on more legitimate criteria: competence, experience, intelligence, discipline, communication ability and international legitimacy.

The 2008 Republican National Convention has shown in stark terms that the GOP is far from abandoning campaign strategies that put style over substance, personality over prerequisites, and appearance over achievement. Once again the same anti-intellectual, anti-education, anti-success mantra has been trotted out and used to great effect to manipulate the electorate into believing mediocrity is superior.

Let us begin with six simple words that encapsulate everything that is wrong with the American political process: “This election is not about issues”. That truly astounding comment came from none other than John McCain’s own campaign manager, Rick Davis.

Where is the outrage over the idea of a campaign not even trying to be substantive? What has happened to America where this barely even registers on the national conscience during a time when deep economic and social crises threaten to overwhelm us?

The answer is right in front of us. Where some Republicans (falsely and dishonestly) try to portray Barack Obama’s candidacy as being based on “white guilt”, a large part of their party’s entire electoral meme has become what I call smart guilt. The idea is to shame and ridicule people – both candidates and voters – who are smart, who care about education, who strive to improve themselves by learning, and who make decisions based on analyzing and thinking rather than impulsivity and emotion.

They tell me I shouldn’t vote for the smart man or woman who has good ideas, because that’s “elitist”. I should feel bad about my educational accomplishments and vote for the guy who barely scraped by in college, because more people scrape by than soar. I should throw my support to the candidate who engages in simplistic black-and-white thinking and petty sloganeering, because tens of millions are incapable of understanding anything more sophisticated than a jingle and a sound bite.

But is striving for mediocrity what made America great?



In John McCain’s pick of Sarah Palin, we see the circle completed, the cynical “smart guilt” George W. Bush election strategy honed and refined to a frightening edge. I am told I shouldn’t favor a vice presidential candidate like Joe Biden, because he’s “boring”, and that his decades of experience and proven track record are unimportant. I should even discount his meeting the main job requirement of a vice president: advising the president, and being ready to step in if there’s an emergency.

In contrast, the GOP tells me that Governor Palin is a far better choice for higher office, because she eats mooseburgers, is a “pit-bull with lipstick” and her husband is a snowmobiling champion. She’s pretty and people like her, so she’s perfect for the most powerful offices of the land.

Apparently Sarah Palin should be my vice-president, and possibly president, because they say that she’s like most Americans. I should strive for a leader who is just like all of the followers.

And if I try to point out Sarah Palin’s dearth of international experience, the budget she unbalanced as mayor, the earmarks she fought for, the huge pork project she supported and then lied about, her abuse of power scandals, her “loyalty tests”, or even her comments that indicate that she doesn’t even know what the job is that she’s running for? According to the mediocrity-first crowd, these aren’t smart questions from a concerned citizen, they are “unfair attacks against small town Americans” – and that’s if I don’t get accused of “sexism”, first.

What is it really, though? It’s “smart guilt”.

And what of the man who chose her? There is only one truly “presidential” decision that candidates must make, and that is selecting running mates. This is the one chance that presidential hopefuls have to show their leadership, demonstrate decision-making ability, and illustrate how they measure and choose the people who will fill hundreds of key positions.

But when John McCain recklessly and foolishly chose an unproven lightweight with extremist views, I was supposed to treasure this as “independence”. When Senator McCain demonstrated a lack of intelligence and judgment by spending less time meeting with this woman before selecting her than I did in hiring a purchasing manager for a department of three, they told me this was actually good because it showed that he’s a “maverick”.

The truth is that “smart guilt” is what these strategists use to trick people into blinding themselves to the poor judgment and incompetent decision-making in a candidate who has spent months running on a basis of judgment and competence.



Ivy League schools have a reputation for taking only the smartest people, but grades are just a part of a much bigger equation; the sort of person you are matters. What you’ve done in your life, how you’ve helped others, how you’ve strived to improve yourself – these are all worked into the equation.

Like college admission, intelligence and education should be only part of how we choose a president, but they should be a part. Voters should never choose a candidate based solely on intelligence, but it is clear that the pendulum has swung much too far in the other direction: when Americans are encouraged to actively vote against education and intelligence, this is a very worrisome sign for our nation.

The presidency is the most important job in this country, and involves managing and integrating large amounts of complex information and making critical decisions. Intelligence and education matter in difficult jobs. This is not the place to choose the candidate “you’d rather have a beer with” over the one who has proven his ability to think on his feet, craft policy, make wise, carefully-considered decisions, and hire advisers wisely.

The president needs to relate to the common man and woman, but should not be a common man or woman. I like my neighbors, but no matter how nice they are, they are no more ready for the presidency than to be on our Olympic basketball team. And we need smart and educated people in the White House even more than we need gifted athletes in sports.

It is time for Americans to reject the notion that they should vote against the intelligence and education of qualified candidates. It is time for Americans to fight back against dishonest efforts to use the inferiority of mediocre candidates as arguments for their promotion, and attempts to castigate the best and brightest because of their achievements.

It is time for “smart guilt” to go.