This here is Serbia!

The Republicans in 2009 are behaving like the Serbs in 1989.

Infallibly Awkward

For a change, the Pope is right on substance...

Soothing tensions with Jews was clearly at the top of Benedict's agenda. But a noteworthy comment upon his arrival at the airport calling for an independent Palestinian homeland alongside Israel had the potential to put him at odds with Israel's new hardline government.
Benedict said both Israelis and Palestinians should "live in peace in a homeland of their own within secure and internationally recognized borders."

...but has he considered that a German who heads the church that until recently blamed the Jews for killing its God may not be the most effective and persuasive spokesman for the idea of a Palestinian state?

The Constitution Commandeth: Thou Shalt Not Call Creationism "Superstitious Nonsense"!

I woke up from blogging hibernation because another Bush-appointed judge decided that we've always been at war with Eastasia.

As Orwell said, freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If a teacher is not allowed to say that creationism is "religious, superstitious nonsense", then we are in deep trouble. And, as of last Friday, a teacher is not allowed to say that, at least not in the Central District of California.

Briefly, James Corbett, a high school history teacher and adviser for the student newspaper, was found liable for Establishment Clause violation because of the comment he made in reference to John Peloza, a biology teacher who has been fighting (and suing) the school district for his "right" to teach creationism in his science class.

The most important reason this ruling is appalling is that it prohibits telling the truth. PZ Myers nails it:

First of all, he told the truth: creationism is religious, it is a product of superstition, and it is nonsense — it doesn't fit any of the evidence we have about the history of the world or life on it. We have to have the right to tell students not only that something is wrong, but that it is stupidly wrong.

And the judge's reasoning is mind-boggling (emphasis mine):

The Court cannot discern a legitimate secular purpose in this statement, even when considered in context. The statement therefore constitutes improper disapproval of religion in violation of the Establishment Clause.

Hello? The context, as described by the judge himself, was Corbett's opposition to Peloza's attempts to teach creationism. Not only is creationism false, but teaching it in public schools - especially in a science class - is illegal. Pointing this out obviously has a secular purpose.

So much for one prong of the Lemon test; the judge sours the next one just as badly:

The Court finds that Corbett’s statement primarily sends a message of disapproval of religion or creationism. As discussed above, Corbett states an unequivocal belief that creationism is “superstitious nonsense.” Corbett could have criticized Peloza for teaching religious views in class without disparaging those views.

This is wrong on several levels. First, it is beyond dispute that, in the context of science, which is what Peloza was supposed to teach, creationism is superstitious nonsense. If it weren't, the fact that it is illegal to teach it would be hugely problematic. If those views did not deserve disparaging, Peloza would be a victim of persecution by the Capistrano Unified School District, the US District Court for the Central District of California (the same one that decided this case) and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. There is a reason creationism is not allowed in the science curriculum.

(And, to preempt the argument that it has nothing to do with truth or falsehood, but only with favoring religion, let me ask if teaching some claim that came from a religion - and, to make the case harder, was denied by another religion - would still be prohibited if the claim turned out to be true. Let's say science discovered that it really was turtles all the way down; would it make any sense to proclaim that teaching that violates the Establishment Clause?)

Furthermore, if so many non-fundamentalist believers and conciliatory non-believers have been trying to convince the public that religion is compatible with evolution, how come disparaging creationism is equated with disparaging religion? Again, I'll outsource this to PZ:

[W]e are being told over and over again that Christianity is not equivalent to creationism. This teacher has specifically said that creationism is nonsense, and this judge has equated a dismissal of a weird anti-scientific belief with making a rude remark about Christianity. So…where are all the Christians rising in outrage at the slander of their faith?

Finally, this suit was not brought by Peloza, but by a student, Chad Farnan. It is a mystery why Farnan should have standing to sue over a disparaging statement one teacher made about another teacher.

Ed Brayton wrote about the decision as well, but he seems terribly confused for a normally staunch free speech proponent. While Ed seems to tepidly agree that the creationism comment did not violate the EC, he also seems to think that some of Corbett's other comments, which the judge found not to have violated the EC, were more problematic:

Again, this is really strained reasoning. If he really wanted to make the nuanced point that the court thinks he was making, he could certainly have done it in a much more scholarly and serious way. Instead, the statement he made was inflammatory and insulting. There just isn't any place for that kind of hostility in a public school classroom.

The way I read it, Ed would have found Corbett liable at least for the "Jesus glasses" comment. That is very disappointing, even more so because he stops at hand-waving and makes no attempt to argue with the Court's actual reasoning. Not surprisingly, a lot of Ed's commenters agree with him, many of them flaunting their ignorance of the facts (e.g., implying that Corbett was a science teacher). I will reproduce my comment here:

Why would the "Jesus glasses" comment be inappropriate? Jesus (if he existed, or other people in his name) promoted a certain set of moral rules that are demonstrably impossible to follow without acting against one's best interest, as the vast majority of Americans understand "one's best interest". It should be a history teacher's duty to explain why a certain group acted against its own interests - at least as it would appear to us. Unless there is evidence that "they were blinded/manipulated by religion" is not a fair explanation, i.e., not one widely accepted by historians, the teacher should be free to teach it.

As for the Mark Twain quote, as long as it is a true quote, it ought to be fair game for a teacher to use it. After all, Twain is arguably the greatest American writer ever (certainly the most acclaimed word-wide), and is (hopefully) well-represented on the syllabus of some required courses. Shouldn't students learn that the greatest American writer was an atheist?

But don't take my word for it, go to the source and read the decision.

UPDATE (5/5/09): As usual, Digby gets it.

Some trivia about the 2008 Presidential Election

As of early afternoon of The Day After Election, Obama has 63.4 million votes (52.4%) to McCain's 56 million (46.3%). As expected, Obama has exceeded Bush's 2004 record of 62 million votes. McCain got more votes than Reagan in 1984, but needs 3 million more to surpass John Kerry's 2004 count.

I am not sure what is going on with the turnout. AP is reporting estimates ranging from 134 to 137 million, but so far only 121 million votes have been counted. Is it possible that 10% of the votes haven't been counted yet? All states except Washington, Oregon and Maine have reported more than 90% of precincts, and the only others below 98% are California, Colorado, Arkansas, South Carolina, and New Hampshire. If the final vote tally increases by 10% in proportion to the votes already counted, Obama could end up with close to 70 million, and McCain could equal Bush's 2004 numbers. Alternatively, there could be a lot of invalid ballots and the estimates could fail to take that into account.

If the current popular vote percentages hold, it will mean that the pollsters were very accurate. The pollster.com average was 52.0-44.4; RealClearPolitics average was 52.1-44.5; and FiveThirtyEight.com projections were within 0.2% of the actual results. The best individual pollster was Rasmussen, whose latest poll was 52-46 for Obama, which means no error other than rounding.

Most state polls were excellent, too, at least for us who relied on FiveThirtyEight's aggregation methods. The three states that were supposed to be extremely close - MO, IN, NC - are still uncertain. Polls also did very well in most states that were expected to be close (OH, FL, VA, CO, MT, GA) or that McCain hoped would be close (NH). Obama outperformed the polls in Pennsylvania (by 4%), Nevada (by 5%) and New Mexico (by 6%), while McCain did better in Iowa (by 4%), Arizona (by 4%) and North Dakota (by 7%). It also seems that, in the states won by large margins, the winner typically outperformed the polls, but of course there were fewer polls in those states and they may not have been done as carefully.

As many have pointed out, Obama's share of the popular vote is greater than any Democrat's since 1964 and greater than any non-incumbent's since 1952 (if we count the sitting Vice President, i.e., Bush in 1988, as an incumbent). More impressive fact, in my opinion, is that, since Andrew Jackson, only two Democrats - FDR and LBJ - have won a greater share of the popular vote.

(Total nerds will also find noteworthy that in the last 10 presidential elections (since 1968), only Reagan in 1984 and Bush in 1988 got a higher percentage of the vote. Obama's popular vote margin is greater than Clinton's in 1992 and, if he ends up winning all three uncertain state, his electoral vote advantage will be greater as well.)

Obama outperformed Kerry in 44 states and DC. The only states where he did worse were Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Tennessee, and (probably) Alaska - and all but the first two were within 1 percentage point of Kerry's result. By contrast, he outperformed Kerry by 39 percentage points in Hawaii, by 22 in Indiana, 19 in North Dakota, 18 in Montana, 17 in Nebraska, 16 in New Mexico, Utah and Vermont, and 15 in Delaware and Nevada.

Obama won the majority of states, only the third Democrat since Truman to do so. (The other two were LBJ and Clinton.)

Obama did better in Delaware, DC, Illinois and Vermont than any Democrat since 1856 (when Democrats and Republicans emerged as the two major parties). His margin of victory in Delaware was second-highest for either party since 1856. (Hoover in 1928 won by 30%.)

It was the best Democratic result in California since 1936 and the second best ever (unless the final results lower the margin from the current 24% to below 21%, which was FDR's 1932 margin).

No Democrat has done better since 1964 in CO, CT, HI, IN, MD, MI, NE, NV, NH, NM, PA, VA, WI, and probably OR (where Obama seems almost certain to exceed Clinton's 10% margin from 1992). That is 14 states, in addition to the 4 (+DC) already mentioned.

It was also the second-best Democratic result "ever" (meaning since the later of statehood or 1856) in CT, HI and NH, third-best "ever" in ME, MI and NY, fourth-best "ever" in NM, PA and WI, and fifth-best "ever" in MD, NJ and OH.

It was the second-best result for a Democrat since FDR's time in CO, IN, MD, MI, NV, NM, PA, WA and WI.

In Nebraska, it was the second-best Democratic result since 1948 and third-best since 1940.

In Florida, it was the third-best Democratic result since 1948 (and better than in 1964).

In Utah, although Clinton lost by smaller margins, the Democratic share of the vote was the highest since 1968; in Texas, it just about equals Clinton's in 1996 (43.83%), which was the highest since 1976. And the result in North Carolina is the best for a Democrat since 1976.

On the other hand, Arkansas is the third-worst ever for a Democrat, Oklahoma is looking about the same as 2004, which was the third-worst ever (in both cases, only 1972 and 1984 were worse), Louisiana is the fourth-worst ever (after 1968, 1972 and 1984), Tennessee is the second-worst since 1868 (only 1972 was worse), and Kentucky and Wyoming were the worst of any year in which the Democrat won.

As the Republican streaks ended for Virginia and (probably) Indiana, the most reliable Republican states remain AK, ID, KS, NE, ND, OK, SD, UT and WY. The nine (the Nazgul?) have voted Republican in every election since 1968, 11 times in a row. By contrast, the most reliably Democratic state has been Minnesota (9 elections, since 1976) and the most reliable jurisdiction DC, which has voted Democratic in every election since the 23rd Amendment (12 elections, since 1964).

Presidential election trivia III: odds and ends

From 1992 to 2000, in 3 straight elections, no candidate got 50% of the vote. The only other time that happened was in the 4 straight elections 1880-1892.

Major party candidates who lost their home state:

• Pinckney (1804 and 1808)
  
• Rufus King (1816)
  
• Van Buren (1840)
  
• Clay (1844)
  
• Scott (1852)
  
• Fillmore (1856) - but he wasn't a major party candidate then
  
• Fremont (1856)
  
• Breckinridge (1860)
  
• Douglas (1860)
  
• McClellan (1864)
  
• Greeley (1868)
  
• Hancock (1880)
  
• Cleveland (1888)
  
• Benjamin Harrison (1892)
  
• Weaver (1892) - not a major party candidate, but won EVs elsewhere
  
• Bryan (1900)
  
• Parker (1904) - both candidates were from NY
  
• T. Roosevelt (1912) - not a major party candidate in that year
  
• Taft (1912)
  
• Wilson (1916) - the only one to win the election despite losing his home state
  
• Cox (1920) - both candidates were from OH
  
• Davis (1924)
  
• Smith (1928)
  
• Hoover (1932)
  
• Landon (1936)
  
• Wilkie (1940)
  
• Dewey (1944)
  
• Stevenson (1952 and 1956)
  
• McGovern (1972)
  
• Gore (2000)

Republicans have dominated the West since the 1920s, except for the Roosevelt-Truman years. ND-SD-NE-KS formed the "axis" that Republicans won even in 1940-48. Those 4 states went Republican in every election since 1920 except 1932, 1936, and 1964. In 1948, Oregon was the only other Republican state west of the Mississippi, but since then the West has been strongly Republican. Here is the list of Democratic states west of the Mississippi since 1952:

• 1952: AR, LA
  
• 1956: AR, MO
  
• 1960: AR, LA, MO, MN, TX, NV, HI
  
• 1964 (Exceptional year - D landslide): all except AZ, LA
  
• 1968: TX, MN, WA, HI (and Wallace won LA, AR)
  
• 1972: none
  
• 1976: TX, HI, MN, MO, AR, LA
  
• 1980: MN, HI
  
• 1984: MN
  
• 1988: HI, WA, OR, MN, IA
  
• 1992: HI, WA, OR, CA (the Pacific states have become safe D territory), NV, MT, CO, NM, and "The Man" (MN, IA, MO, AR, LA)
  
• 1996: Pacific + "The Man" + NV, AZ, NM
  
• 2000: Pacific + NM, MN, IA
  
• 2004: Pacific + MN

Presidential election trivia II: states and electoral votes

Only 3 states have held the distinction of being the state with the most electoral votes: Virginia until 1808, New York 1812-1968, and California since 1972.

1812 was the first election in which some electoral votes came from west of the Mississippi - from Louisiana.

The second state west of the Mississippi was Missouri (first voted in the 1820 election), the third was Arkansas (1836), followed by Iowa and Texas in 1848 and California in 1852.

States that voted for the first Republican presidential candidate (John Frémont) in 1856: all of New England, plus Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa. All except OH look reliably Democratic for 2008. All except OH and IA voted Democratic in 2004. All except OH and NH voted Democratic in 2000. All voted Democratic in 1992 and 1996.

Free states that voted for James Buchanan in 1856: Pennsylvania (his home state), Illinois, Indiana, New Jersey, and California (Frémont's home state). In 1860, Lincoln won all of them (NJ split its electoral votes 4-3 in Lincoln's favor).

States Lincoln lost in 1864: Kentucky (where he was born), Delaware, New Jersey. He won Missouri and Maryland although they were slave states. He won West Virginia which was still a slave state, although it was formally committed to abolishing slavery. He also won Kansas, where the status of slavery was violently contested before the Civil War.

1872 was the first time New Jersey went completely Republican and the last time until 1928 that Virginia voted Republican.

Southern states that never voted Republican during the Civil War or the Reconstruction: Georgia and Kentucky.

In 1876, Connecticut voted Democratic, the first New England state to do that since the emergence of the Republican Party.

In 1880, the South solidified Democratic. It was also the first time Nevada voted Democratic, and the first time California did so since 1856. The only time CA went D between 1880 and 1916 was in 1892, when it split its electoral votes 8D, 1R.

In 1900, the two Dakotas voted for the same candidate for the first time (in 1892, ND split its votes 3-way and SD voted R; in 1896, ND voted R and SD voted D; in 1900, they both went R.) They voted together in every subsequent election except 1912 (when ND voted Democratic and SD Progressive) and 1916 (ND-D, SD-R). Almost all those votes were for the Republican, except in 1932, 1936, and 1964.

In 1904, Missouri voted Republican for the first time since 1864. Teddy Roosevelt solidified the West - he won all states west of the Mississippi except Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana. Roosevelt was the first candidate to win more than 300 electoral votes.

In 1912, Woodrow Wilson became the first candidate to win over 400 electoral votes (435 out of 531) and to carry 40 states (out of 48), despite winning only 41.8% of popular vote (which was the lowest percentage for the winner since Lincoln in 1860).

All New England states except Vermont went Democratic in 1912. Other than Connecticut, they had not done so since 1852. Massachusetts had not voted Democratic since 1820 (and in a contested election not since 1804). Ohio also went D for the first time since 1852.

Only Vermont and Utah voted Republican in 1904 1912. (Six other states - PA, MI, MN, CA, WA, SD - voted Progressive.)

From 1856 to 1908, these were the only instances of states that border Canada voting Democratic:

• New York in 1868, 1876, 1884, and 1892; each time, the Democratic candidate was from NY.
  
• Washington, Idaho and Montana in 1896 (and ID and MT again in 1900).
  
• Also, in 1892, Michigan split its votes R9, D5, North Dakota split 3-way (D-R-P), and Idaho went Populist.

Pacific Coast states voting Democratic during the same period:

• California in 1856 and 1880; also splitting its votes in 1892 (D8, R1) and 1896 (D1, R8);
  
• Oregon in 1868;
  
• Washington in 1896.

After the 1912-16 hiatus, all Canadian-border and Pacific-coast states again voted Republican throughout the 1920s.

In 1912, Woodrow Wilson became the first candidate to win over 400 electoral votes (435, out of 531) and to carry 40 states (out of 48) despite winning only 41.8% of the popular vote.

In 1916, the only Republican states west of the Mississippi were OR, SD, MN and IA; the West almost solidified D in a near-reversal of 1904. However, all of Northeast (except NH) was back in the Republican column.

Wilson won in 1916 despite losing his home state (NJ); he was the only presidential candidate ever to do that. Charles Hughes became the first candidate to lose despite winning more than 200 electoral votes (254). Only Al Gore won more EV while losing the election (267); had Florida been counted properly, the 2000 election would not have been as close as the 1916 one.

In 1920, Tennessee went Republican for the first time since 1868, and Oklahoma for the fist time since it became a state. The West was again solidly Republican as in 1904. Harding became the first Republican to win more than 400 EV.

In the three elections of the 1920s, the only Democratic electoral votes outside the Confederacy came from Kentucky in 1920, Oklahoma in 1924, and Massachusetts and Rhode Island in 1928.

1928 was the first election in which Texas and Kentucky voted Republican; Texas didn't go Republican again until 1952 and Kentucky not until 1956. Also, FL went R the first time since the controversial 1876 and NC and VA the first time since 1872. Hoover won more EV (444) than any Republican before him, and was the first Republican to carry 40 states.

In 1932, Minnesota voted Democratic for the first time ever, Michigan the first time since 1852, Ohio the second time since 1852 (the only exception was 1912), South Dakota the second time since statehood (first was in 1896), and Wisconsin the third time since 1852 (the first two were 1892 and 1912).

In 1936, FDR won 523 electoral votes out of 531. Ronald Reagan won 525 EV in 1984, but out of a greater total (538), so that FDR still holds the record for the highest percentage of electoral votes won.

States that voted against FDR:

• ME, VT - all 4 times;
  
• IN, ND, SD, NE, KS, IA, CO - twice (1940, 1944);
  
• PA, DE, CT, NH in 1932;
  
• MI in 1940;
  
• WY, OH in 1944.

FDR won a cumulative total of 1876 electoral votes in his 4 elections. None of his opponents won 100 EVs (Dewey did the best with 99). The cumulative total of EVs his opponents won in the 4 elections (248) would not have been enough to win a single election.

Harry Truman in 1948 was the first Democratic nominee to lose SC and LA since 1876 and MS and AL since 1872. (Of course, Thurmond, who won them, was also a Democrat at the time, so it wasn't a party realignment.)

In 1952, Texas went Republican for the second time ever, Virginia for the second time since 1872, and Florida the second time since 1876. (In each case, the first time was in 1928.) In a dramatic switch of allegiance, Virginia has only voted Democratic once since - in 1964.

In 1956, Eisenhower carried more states (41) and won more electoral votes (457) than any Republican before him. Eisenhower's cumulative total of 899 EVs was second only to FDR's. (It has since been exceeded by Nixon and Reagan.) Louisiana went Republican the first time since 1876.

Eisenhower won Massachusetts twice, the only Republican to do so since McKinley between McKinley and Reagan.

In 1960, Nixon won more states than JFK (26-22), but lost the Electoral College 303-219. It was the first election in which the loser carried more states than the winner since the anomalous 1824 election, which was decided by the House of Representatives. (Garfield and Hancock carried 19 states each in 1880; Taylor and Cass carried 15 each in 1848.) It happened again in 1976, when Ford won more states than Carter, and it would have happened in 2000 if Gore had won Florida.

Pennsylvania and Michigan voted for JFK in 1960. The only Democrat they had voted for since 1856 (1852 in Michigan's case) was FDR (and each state even voted against him once).

1964 landslide LBJ victory was the only time Alaska voted Democratic, the first time Vermont voted D since 1852, and the second time ME voted D since 1852 (first was in 1912). However, it was also the first time ever that Georgia voted Republican (it didn't do so even during the Reconstruction) and the best Republican showing in the Deep South (all 5 states, 47 EVs) ever, and the only time R had done better in the Confederacy since 1872 was in 1928, when Hoover won 5 states and 62 EVs. Interestingly, there is no Southern state that both Hoover and Goldwater carried. (They did both carry Arizona, however.) 1964 was the last time Virginia voted Democratic.

1968 was the last time a third-party candidate won electoral votes. George Wallace carried 5 states (AR, LA, MS, AL, GA) worth 46 electoral votes. 4 of the 5 states were Goldwater states in 1964; the difference is that Wallace carried AR, but lost SC.

Before Wallace, the last third-party candidate to win electoral votes was Harry Byrd, who won 15 EVs in 1960, carrying Mississippi, the majority of Alabama's EV, and 1 EV from Oklahoma. His running mate, Strom Thurmond, had won 4 states (LA, MS, AL, SC) and 39 EVs in 1948.

The last non-Dixiecrat who won EVs as a third-party candidate was Robert M. La Follette, Sr., Progressive who won Wisconsin's 13 EV in 1924. Teddy Roosevelt, running as a Progressive in 1912, made the best showing of any third-party candidate, winning 6 states and 88 EV. He won more popular and more electoral votes than the Republican candidate William Howard Taft. In 1888, Populist Weaver won 4 states (KS, CO, NV, ID) and partial EV from another two (OR, ND), for a total of 22 EV.

In 1872, 6 candidates won EVs, but all of them were Republicans and Democrats (and the election was complicated by Greeley's death). In 1860, 4 candidates won EVs: Lincoln (Republican) 180, Breckinridge (Southern Democrat) 72, Douglas (Northern Democrat) 12, and Bell (Constitutional Union) 39. Bell won KY, TN, and VA. Douglas only won MO, despite winning almost as many popular votes as Breckinridge and Bell together.

Millard Fillmore carried Maryland's 8 EV as the Know-Nothing candidate in 1856.

5 people won EVs in 1836, but they were all Democrats or Whigs. In 1832, Nullifier John Floyd won South Carolina and Anti-Masonic William Wirt won Vermont. And, of course, in 1824, four Democratic-Republicans split the EV and the House had to decide the election.

In 1972, Nixon set the record, carrying 49 states. He failed to top FDR's 523 EV, but his 520 brought his cumulative total to 1040, surpassing Eisenhower and remaining to this day second only to FDR. It was also the first time the Republican candidate swept the Confederacy, and the first time Hawaii voted Republican

1976 was the closest EV race between 1916 and 2000. Ford won more states than Carter (27 vs. 23+DC), but Carter won 297 EV to Ford's 240 (plus 1 that a rogue elector cast for Reagan). It was also the last time a Democrat won MS, AL, SC, or NC.

In 1980 and 1984 Reagan won Massachusetts. The only other Republican to win MA since 1924 was Eisenhower (who won it twice).

Reagan's 525 EV in 1984 was the most ever (but FDR won a higher percentage of EV in 1936) and his 49 states tied Nixon's record from 1972. It was the second and last time Hawaii went Republican. Reagan's 1014 cumulative EV total (1015 if 1976 is counted) is the third-highest ever (after FDR and Nixon), but the highest ever from two elections. (FDR's 2-election best is 995 in 1932-36.) The last candidate to lose fewer electoral votes in two elections was James Monroe, who was barely opposed in 1816 and essentially unopposed in 1820. Monroe lost a total of 37 EV, but he only won 411, so percentage-wise Reagan did better. Only Washington did clearly better than Reagan in this respect, but he was unopposed both times.

1988 was the last time CA, CT, DE, IL, MD, ME, MI, NJ, PA and VT voted Republican.

1992 was the last time CO, GA and MT voted Democratic.

1996 was the last time "the man" (column of 5 states comprising MN, IA, MO, AR and LA) voted for the same candidate. (It also happened in 1932, 1936, 1972, and 1992, so FDR, Nixon and Clinton were the only candidates to carry all those 5 states.) It was also the last time AR, AZ, FL, KY, LA, MO, NV, OH, TN, and WV voted Democratic; in Arizona's case, it was the only time since 1948.

In 2000, Al Gore got the most EV ever for a losing candidate (267, but officially 266 because one elector cast a protest vote). It was also the last election in which the 2 largest states went for the same candidate (and the last election in which NY was the 2nd-largest state).

Presidential election trivia I: national popular vote

First to get more than 1 million votes: William Henry Harrison and Martin Van Buren in 1840.

First to get more than 2 million votes: Abraham Lincoln in 1864. He won 55% of the total vote in this wartime election. (In his first election, before the South seceded, he won less than 40%, although it was still more than 10% more than the nearest opponent.)

First to get more than 3 million votes: Ulysses S. Grant in 1868. Grant won 55.6% of the popular vote, more than any candidate since Andrew Jackson in 1828.

First to get more than 4 million votes: Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel J. Tlden in 1876. Famously (or infamously), Tilden got more votes, the election hinged on Florida and was decided by a commission along partisan lines.

First to get more than 5 million votes: Benjamin Harrison and Grover Cleveland in 1888. Cleveland got more votes, but Harrison prevailed in the Electoral College. That didn't happen again until 2000.

First to get more than 7 million votes: William McKinley in 1896. McKinley was the first candidate to get more than 50% of the vote since Tilden in 1976 and first to win with more than 50% since Grant in 1872. William Jennings Bryan won over 6 million votes, more than any candidate before that year.

First to win by a margin of more than 1 million votes: Teddy Roosevelt in 1904. His margin was actually over 2 million votes, and his percentage (56.4%) was more than anyone's since Monroe ran unopposed in 1820. (Interestingly, his Electoral College victory was not particularly lopsided: he won 32 out of 45 states and 70% of the electoral vote. He was, however, the first candidate to win over 300 electoral votes.)

First to get more than 10 million votes: Warren G. Harding in 1920. Harding was also the first to get more than 15 million (actually more than 16 million), the first to win by a margin exceeding 5 million (actually over 7 million) and the first to win more than 60% of the popular vote in 100 years, since Monroe in 1820 (and first to do that in a competitive race since 1808). It is interesting how little relation there was between his electoral success and his record as President. He must not have been unpopular in his time, though: when his successor Calvin Coolidge ran for reelection, he won by a popular-vote margin of 25.2%.

First to get more than 20 million votes: Herbert Hoover in 1928. Hoover also set the new record with 444 electoral votes. His opponent, Alfred E. Smith, became the first losing candidate with more than 10 million votes.

Franklin D. Roosevelt set the new popular-vote record in 1932, although without crossing any trivia-worthy milestone. However, his popular-vote percentage (57.4%) was the highest for a Democrat since Andrew Jackson. Moreover, he was the first Democrat to get more than 50% of the vote since Tilden in 1876 (neither Cleveland nor Wilson ever accomplished that) and the first Democrat to win with more than 50% of popular votes since Pierce in 1852.

First to get more than 25 million votes, and first to win by a margin of more than 10 million votes: FDR in 1936. (Only LBJ in 1964, Nixon in 1972 and Reagan in 1984 have won by more than 10 million votes since.) His 27.7 million votes was not surpassed until 1952. FDR also bested Harding's modern-era record in popular-vote percentage (60.8% vs. 60.3%). His 523 electoral votes remained the record until 1984 and is still the record percentage-wise (2 states have been added to the Union and DC has become represented in the Electoral College since then).

FDR was also the first candidate to win a cumulative total of over 100 million votes. In his 4 presidential elections, he won a total of 103 million votes.

First to lose despite getting more than 20 million votes: Wendell Wilkie in 1940.

First to get more than 30 million votes: Dwight Eisenhower in 1952. In his 1956 reelection, Eisenhower got over 35 million votes, and won more states (41) and electoral votes (457) than any Republican before him.

First to lose despite getting more than 30 million votes: Richard Nixon in 1960. Nixon was also the first loser to get more votes than FDR got in any single election.

Popular-vote records set by Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964: first to get over 40 million (43.1 million), highest modern-time percentage (61.1%), first to win by a margin of more than 15 million. It was also the first time Vermont voted for a Democrat since 1852 and the only time ever Alaska did so, but also the first time ever that Georgia voted for a Republican (which it didn't do even during Reconstruction).

First to get more than 45 million votes: Richard Nixon in 1972. In his 3 presidential elections, Nixon won a cumulative total of 113 million votes, breaking FDR's record. Nixon's cumulative vote record still stands.

First to get more than 50 million votes: Ronald Reagan in 1984.

Reagan is the most recent president who won more than 50% of the vote twice. That is a surprisingly rare feat; the only presidents who accomplished that before Reagan were Eisenhower, FDR, McKinley, Grant, Jackson, Monroe, Madison, Jefferson, and Washington. Note that the list includes 3 Founding Fathers, one who essentially ran unopposed (Monroe), three generals famous for critical victories in major wars (Jackson, Grant, Eisenhower) and only 3 "normal" politicians (McKinley, FDR, Reagan). Of the 5 candidates on the list whose popular vote counts are reasonably meaningful (that would be starting with Grant), FDR had the highest average vote percentage (56.6%), followed by Eisenhower (56.3%), Reagan (54.8%), Grant (54.2%), and McKinley (51.3%).


First to lose despite getting more than 40 million votes: Michael Dukakis in 1988.

Bill Clinton was the first president since Wilson to win twice with less than 50% of the popular vote. That is an even rarer feat than winning twice with over 50%; only 3 candidates ever did it. (The third, or chronologically the first, was Grover Cleveland.)

First to lose despite getting more than 50 million votes: Al Gore in 2000. Of course, Al Gore lost only because the votes in Florida were not properly counted.

First to get more than 60 million votes: George W. Bush in 2004. Bush thus joined FDR and Nixon as only the third person to get more than 100 million cumulative votes. He failed to best Nixon's record, but he did win the most votes in 2 elections. (Nixon's cumulative votes are a 3-election total, and FDR's are over 4 elections.)

Will Obama exceed 70 million? With a good turnout, that is possible.

Honorable mention list: John Kerry (2004), James M. Cox (1920), Charles Hughes (1916), William Jennings Bryan (1896), Grover Cleveland (1888), James Blaine (1884), Winfield Scott Hancock (1880), Samuel J. Tilden (1876), Horatio Seymour (1868), Winfield Scott (1852), Henry Clay (1844), Martin Van Buren (1840), John Q. Adams (1828), Andrew Jackson (1824), DeWitt Clinton (1812), and Thomas Jefferson (1796) lost, but got more votes that anyone before them. Cleveland, Tilden and Jackson also got more votes than the winner of their election. (Note that John Adams in 1800, Charles Pinckney in 1804, Horace Greeley in 1872, Benjamin Harrison in 1892, William Jennings Bryan in 1900, Herbert Hoover in 1932, Wendell Wilkie in 1940, and Thomas Dewey in 1948 also got more votes than anyone other than themselves or the winner of their election.)

A tale of two debates

This sounds familiar:

[The Democrat] won the vice-presidential debate 41% to 28% among uncommitted voters according to a CBS poll. An online poll conducted by MSNBC makes the margin of [Democrat's] victory even larger: 67% to 33%. While the MSNBC poll was not a scientific poll, it did have 885,000 responses, so it was a very large poll of Internet users.

The effect of the first presidential debate is starting to kick in. [The Democrat] is surging and [the Republican] is dropping. [The Democrat] has retaken the lead in all-important Ohio by 49% to 48%

That was 4 years ago, so be careful with post-debate optimism. On the other hand, the electoral map looked quite bleak then. Kerry was 53 electoral votes behind, while Obama is 135 EV ahead today, according to the same source. There probably aren't any useful lessons about predictions in this historical snapshot.

What I find more interesting - actually, stunning - is that the poll results about the VP debate winner were so similar in 2004 and 2008. That's completely crazy. I couldn't be more biased than I was for Edwards and against Cheney, but come on, that debate was a tie. Edwards failed in every possible way to show how bad the Bush-Cheney administration was and to distinguish the alternative that he and Kerry offered. He failed to challenge Cheney and call his BS. So both of them came out looking like reasonable people with legitimate policy differences that were a matter of personal preference. An intelligent space alien who saw them for the first time would get a similar impression as in the 1996 Gore-Kemp debate. The problem is, the difference between Jack Kemp and Dick Cheney is... about nine circles of Hell. I think I am charitable to Edwards when I say the 2004 debate was a tie; it was actually the main reason I did not support his candidacy this time.

By contrast, this year we didn't really see a VP debate. We saw a feisty puppy nipping at a gigantic St. Bernard's ankle, half the time not even distracting him, and half the time being shaken away with one twitch. It may have been a pit bull puppy, and she was cute and eager to show off the tricks she learned, but she mainly got praised for not peeing on the floor. The St. Bernard was a bit old, and some say boring, but reassuringly confident and reliable. There is no doubt as to who won; the only question is, can we even call it a contest?

How, then, can we explain the similar viewer verdicts? The only explanation I can think of has to do with the contrast of the deep antipathy for Cheney vs. low expectations and a perverse, respect-less liking for Palin.

And that despite the fact that Palin's most substantive statement in the entire debate was that she agreed with Cheney's views on Vice President's Constitutional powers.

A DHB in the WH!?

Seeing Obama's 5-8 point lead in the most recent tracking polls, I am changing from hopeful to optimistic that, after 28 years, we will have a Decent Human Being in the White House.

The last time a DHB was President:

• John Lennon's and Yoko Ono's (Just Like) Starting Over topped the Hot 100 chart;
  
• Bill Haley, Bob Marley, Hoagie Carmichael, Joe Louis, Albert Speer, Moshe Dayan, Nelson Algren, William Holden, and Natalie Wood were alive;
  
• Alicia Keys, Justin Timberlake, Josh Groban, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, Jennifer Hudson, Jessica Alba, Elijah Wood, Natalie Portman, Anna Kournikova, Roger Federer, and Serena Williams were not born yet;
  
• The Space Shuttle had not been launched, computer viruses did not exist, and AIDS had not been described;
  
• The most advanced personal computer was Apple II Plus, with 48 kB of RAM, expandable to 64 kB;
  
• Moonraker was the latest James Bond film;
  
• Raiders of the Lost Ark had not been released;
  
• Tom Cruise had not appeared in any movie, and Tom Hanks' biggest claim to fame was playing Kip Wilson in the TV series Bosom Buddies;
  
• The head anchor of The CBS Evening News was Walter Cronkite;
  
• Wheel of Fortune was hosted by Chuck Woolery and Jeopardy! was off the air;
  
• Dynasty and Hill Street Blues were brand new shows, and the word "Smurf" meant nothing (unless you read Belgian comics);
  
• MTV did not exist; and
  
• Prince Charles was a bachelor.
  

What every American student needs to know

Sarah Palin today:

Every American student needs to come through this area so that, especially this younger generation of Americans is, to be in a position of never forgetting what happened here and never repeating, never allowing a repeat of what happened here.

Maybe that's not a bad idea. But shouldn't every American student also come through Tulsa, to be in a position of never forgetting what happened there? And, while on the field trip in Oklahoma, shouldn't they also visit Oklahoma City? Most terrorism in our nation's history has been home-grown and perpetrated by right-wingers of European physiognomy.

Do we really need lower taxes?

It may be impossible to get elected in the US these days without promising tax cuts. Obama, the more fiscally responsible (or, more accurately, less irresponsible) of the two major-party presidential candidates, has promised not to increase the taxes of anyone earning less than $250,000 a year. I understand that low- and average-income people are hurting, but are families with incomes in the low 6-digits really that burdened with taxes that they can't pay more?

The usual response to this question is that higher taxes, and higher marginal taxes in particular - that is, higher rate of tax on the next dollar earned - reduce incentives to work and save, and thus reduce output and capital formation and slow down economic growth. Neoclassical economic models "prove" that low taxes are good for the economy (as long as government spending is also low, a detail often ignored by the passionate tax-cutters). But historical evidence hardly supports that theory.

People with good incomes faced higher marginal tax rates in the 1950s and 1960s, yet the economy was strong and growing fast, people worked just as hard as today, and saved more. As an example of a well-to-do, but not rich, families, I chose those whose income equaled the Congressional salary in each year. The blue line in the graph below shows the marginal tax rate (popularly known as the "tax bracket") that such a family, with two children and no itemized deductions, faced from 1955 to 2008.


Additionally, the orange line shows the tax bracket of a family earning twice the Congressional salary - a family just wealthy enough that its taxes would increase under Obama's plan. From a historical perspective, those people have paid ridiculously low taxes in the last two decades. And we are not even talking about multi-million-earning CEOs, who might have been in the 90% bracket during the Eisenhower administration.

So why would anyone think that a big tax hike on the well-to-do would kill the economy?

If English was good enough for Jesus Christ...

Ma Ferguson probably never said "If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for Texas", but Sarah Palin not only said, but actually wrote, something very similar:

11. Are you offended by the phrase “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance? Why or why not?
SP: Not on your life. If it was good enough for the founding fathers, its good enough for me and I’ll fight in defense of our Pledge of Allegiance.

Jesus Christ! Thanks to JLFinch for pointing this out, as well as explaining why Palin's statement is ignorant drivel, so I don't have to. (I have little patience for elementary stuff like that.)

To be fair, Palin doesn't suffer from double standards in the area of education; she supports the right of everyone else to grow up to be as ignorant as she is:

Parents should have the ultimate control over what their children are taught.

However, she may have to negotiate this one with her new boss:

6a. Do you support the expansion of gambling in Alaska?
SP: No, in so many cases, gambling has shown ill effects on families and as Governor I would not propose expansion legislation.

Ooops. McCain loves playing craps, for thousands of dollars at a time.

UPDATE: As Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum has scrubbed the page that's embarrassing for their friend Palin, I updated the link to the web archive of the page. H/T to Michael Heath.

R Is for Recount

I don't have HBO and haven't seen Recount, but any occasion is good to remind Americans that the 2000 presidential election was stolen and that the administration we are suffering was not elected, but installed in a coup d'etat. Digby's post about the nightmares of 2000 is worth reading (as are her posts generally).

And yes, I remember that Bush was elected more-or-less legally once in the meantime, in 2004. I have acknowledged that by referring to him as "President", something I absolutely avoided throughout his first term. But he won that election as as the incumbent, a significant advantage which he gained as a direct consequence of his illegal 2000 power grab.

What has made me sad for the past seven and a half years is how little outrage and protest there was when Bush stole the election. I didn't live in the DC area at the time, but I came to protest against the inauguration. Sadly, there were only a few thousand (5000 would be my estimate) mostly mild-mannered protesters. In a vital democracy, millions would have taken to the streets and/or refused to cooperate with the administration. I learned then that our democracy is ill; the only question is, is the illness terminal, or will democracy recover?

Robertson Endorses Giuliani: History Repeats Itself

First time as farce:



And the second time again as farce:



For more detailed captions, see the first comment.

When Wars Were Worth Fighting

There are several things I've wanted to write about, but in the last couple of days I've been spending most of my free time watching The War. Normally I don't watch TV, but for a Ken Burns documentary I'll always make an exception.