Election 2016

It is the last weekend before this contentious and bizarre Presidential election season culminates with voting day on the second Tuesday in November. Most people I know have spent more time following polls, watching debates, and trying to ignore political ads over the past two years than in all previous elections combined. And most people admit to being a little tired of the rhetoric and partisan bickering.

However, it's probably incorrect to hope that November 8th will be the end of this. Those who say, "I just want this over" are in for some more disappointment. The election is very close. The popular vote on November 8th determines who the Electors vote for when the Electoral College convenes in December.

• Should Clinton win, the allegations of corruption will follow her into office and undermine her credibility further. A fractured Republican party could actually reunite in its effort to stymie the Clinton administration while rebuilding for the 2020 election. 
• Should Trump win, he will have the advantage of Republican-party majorities in at least the House and perhaps the Senate. However, the party is hardly unanimous in its support for their nominee. 
• One unintended consequence of a Trump victory is the probable demise of the Republican party. I believe some moderate Republicans and all of the Not Trump Republicans will join voices with the moderate Democrats to stall Trump's agenda. Trump himself is so unpopular that some elected representatives will be compelled to break from party loyalty. The Republican party cannot withstand a split on Trump / Not Trump lines. Independents and Libertarians stand to benefit if they can find a leader more presidential than Gary Johnson, and get some support in state and federal offices in the 2018 election. 

Regardless of who wins office, this rancorous political environment will not blow over anytime soon.

Most polls predict that Clinton will win the popular vote. The Real Clear Politics average of major national polls shows a narrow Clinton victory. Only one major poll gives Trump an advantage. Notice that the largest sample with the smallest margin of error is inconclusive.

This particular race has always been a close two-way race with Trump playing the spoiler and Johnson never really breaking through. Trump is rising in the polls and has closed the gap to less than 3% as of this writing.

Bear in mind that the popular vote does not determine the winner. On the morning of November 9th, polling will most likely show a Clinton victory. However, the popular vote is conducted to choose electors in the Electoral College, and the Electoral College actually will actually determine the winner, if and only if one of the top three candidates manages to get a simple majority of the EC votes. That number is (538 / 2) + 1 = 270.

Above is a snapshot of projected EC votes based on current polls. Below is a trend of EC vote predictions over time.

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PredictWise by David Rothchild is a site that looks at polling data but also the data from predictive markets. The data from PW indicates that RCP may have a slight Republican skew, meaning that if RCP gives a small edge to Clinton, the actual advantage may be much larger.

Accessed November 5, 2016 from: http://predictwise.com/blog/2016/11/possible-polling-error/

The consensus indicates a victory for the Democrats on Tuesday. But I think that the confidence is misplaced. This race could be much closer than polls indicate. Here is how Donald J. Trump might become the 45th President of the United States. I am not going to say whether this is good or bad. I'm not going to get into the why of this outcome, but I will describe how, and a little bit of when, this will happen.

First, a disclaimer: Here on PhilosFX, I don't discuss politics, per se. Rather, I focus on decision analysis, hoping to enable informed decisions. You probably won't see me advocating for a candidate, but you may see me delving into data collection and analysis.

I am personally non-partisan and to my recollection, I have never voted a straight ticket. I'm an issues-based voter. I am such a label-avoiding pragmatist, I have not registered with any party, not even the Independent Party. I vote. I take a stand when I vote. Before I vote, I consider the issues important to me, and how I would enact policy on those issues if I were in a position to decide. Then I select the candidate that comes closest to what I would do on the slate of issues that matter most to me.

That disclaimer out of the way, I get the impression that the Electoral College will decide this election. The popular vote will likely go to Clinton, but the EC is far from a lock for the Dems. I once thought that if Johnson won just enough EC votes to prevent either Clinton or Trump from getting to 270, then Congress would decide the election. According to the Constitution, if the EC cannot determine the winner of the election, the House selects the President from the top 3 finishers, and the Senate chooses the VP from the top two finishers.

Given the Republican majority in the House, Johnson could block a Clinton victory in one of two ways: First, and most likely, the Representatives would vote along party lines and elect Trump. Second, and only if the Trump campaign experienced a serious malfunction of some kind, the Representatives could reject Trump and vote for the other non-Clinton: Johnson. But I have come to realize that it is extremely unlikely that Johnson will capture even his home state of New Mexico. Even if he finishes third, it is unlikely that he will capture enough support to give Republicans pause. For better or worse, Johnson has become a non-factor.

That leaves the race in the hands of the EC. I think the polls are disproportionately representing the urban vote. Even if Clinton does end up winning the urban vote and the minority vote, she is not doing well in the great unwashed Midwest. Polls are under representing the older white voters who don't participate in polls for the simple fact that they don't have cell phones. They live in areas that may not have decent cell coverage. But they vote. They are angry, they have either been left out of the tech boom or they have opted out of it, and they vote. And so the election will come down to whether Trump can turn the grey states in the above map red. Watch Florida (29 votes), Ohio (18), Michigan (16), Georgia (16), and North Carolina (15).

Just so we're clear: Regardless of the popular vote, if Hillary Clinton does not get 270 or more Electoral College votes, Donald Trump will be the next President of the United States.  

A short guide to the Middle East

The Middle East Explained In One Excellent Letter To The Editor

This letter to the editor from Mr. K. N. Al-Sabah ran in the Aug 24th edition of Financial Times.  It was then picked up by BuzzFeed.
 

 

 

This Quixotic quote inspired me to attempt a drawing of the social network described in Mr. Al-Sabah's letter.

 

Assuming we do want to get involved in the Middle East, do we know enough to actually make the situation better?

 

 

Look in the comments under the article as it appears in BuzzFeed and you will find a visualization by Derpina which takes the form of a Flow Chart.

 

The first problem I have with Derpina's visualization is that the Turks are Sunni, not Shia. The second problem is that the flow chart makes the situation look deterministic, which is misleading. 

 

I believe my spaghetti chart above captures the chaos more accurately, in my never humble but always biased opinion.

 

That said, I believe this version by the Elder of Zion is even better. His is an improvement on one created by another blogger, the big Pharaoh. As the Elder of Zion states, any attempt to understand this situation will change daily.

 

I wonder if this idea of graphing the complex social networks in the Middle East would make a fun parlor game? I wonder what I will think of this post when I look back on it in 10 years?

 

 

How P&G Presents Data to Decision-Makers - Tom Davenport - Harvard Business Review

I highly recommend this article by Tom Davenport in a recent Harvard Business Review.

"Those of us who believe that managers make better decisions when key data are presented visually tend to get very excited about all the innovation going on in the graphical display of information. (For a sampling of some new and cool tools, see the popular Hans Rosling TED talk.) However, if you work in a large organization and want it to make better use of data visualization, I'd argue that commonality is more important than creativity. If you can establish a common visual language for data, you can radically upgrade the use of the data to drive decision-making and action."

Innovative desktop "dashboard" displays, meeting spaces called "Business Spheres," and graphics such as the "heat map" shown above are fueling better decisions. 

H/T: DS

President Obama's 2d Term Agenda

Photo by WaPo. For a full transcript of the SOTU address, go HERE

This is the second in a three part series of articles about the President's agenda for his second term.

• Part One: January's Inaugural Address.
• Part two: his Madri Gras-eve State of the Union Address.  
• Part three: the President's Budget for FY 2014, due in March.

First impression: I need some new ties. I have no pastel, Easter-colored neck ties. I was not invited to attend the SOTU address this year, but had I been present in the House Chamber, I would have looked out of place. Lilting Lilac. Sky Blue. Fuzzy Peach. Mint Green. Bunny nose Pink. We went from Mardi Gras to Easter Sunday in one fell swoop.

As long as we are dispensing with the trivia, what did you think of Marco Rubio's "water moment" in the Republican rebuttal? I found the moment humanizing but the hoopla about it de-humanizing. If you don't know what I am referring to, consider yourself lucky and the matter closed. Enough said?

Speaking of social media, my Facebook friend and frequent PhilosFX commentator, CT, said this fanfare of banality all reminded him of a favorite Frank Zappa quote,

"Politics is the entertainment division of the military-industrial complex."

Frank may have been on to something, but, like it or not, we are governed by the people we elect, following the process outlined in our Constitution. So let's take a more serious look at what the State of the Union Address tells us about where the President sees the Nation in relation to where he'd like to take us.

• Increasing the minimum wage
• A path to citizenship and tougher border security
• Only “modest” Medicare and Social Security reforms
• Increased gun control
• Ending the war in Afghanistan
• Increased infrastructure spending
• Addressing climate change
• Increasing sharing of information to prevent cyber attacks

Some folks look at this list and see a fairly pragmatic agenda. Some other folks look at the same list and see a threat to our freedom in the form of big government take-over. Some folks never get past the fact that our President self-identifies as a Black man, although I dare say that fewer and fewer citizens are paying attention to race and gender. President Obama is not the Black President. He is the President (who happens to be Black). That color-blindness is a good thing, as long as people are truly focused on issues that matter more, such as the strength of the Nation and the health and well-being of her people.

Personally, I look at the list and I see a fairly pragmatic agenda, which is what I want to see. Which is why I am immediately suspicious. Rhetoric sways people. Recall these stirring words from Part One, the President's second inaugural address.

" . . . each time we gather to inaugurate a president, we bear witness to the enduring strength of our Constitution.

"What makes us exceptional, what makes us America is our allegiance to an idea articulated in a declaration . . . We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. That they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, and among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

"The patriots of 1776 did not fight to replace the tyranny of a king with the privileges of a few, or the rule of a mob. They gave to us a republic, a government of, and by, and for the people. Entrusting each generation to keep safe our founding creed . . . "
 

A President of the United States can use phrases like "unalienable rights" and government "of, by, and for the people" in speeches, even as his policies

"... point away from a republic of liberty and toward bureaucratic despotism.  President Obama's policies - from Obamacare, to higher taxes and runaway debt, to increased regulation of the economy and of family life - are in direct contradiction to these words in his second inaugural address.

"President Obama can only get away with misusing the words of America's founders because too many Americans today have not been properly educated about our American Heritage.

"And if this is allowed to continue, our great nation will become less free and less prosperous, and the intrusive bureaucratic state will expand." --Dr. Larry P. Arnn, President, Hillsdale College

Let's get past the melody and the message and get to the meat. How will the agenda laid out in the SOTU address contribute to the strength of the Nation and the health and well-being of her people? So the challenge now is to connect the beautiful melody of January's Inaugural Address with the inspiring lyrics of this State of the Union Address and produce the actual sheet music of the President's Budget for FY 2014. Follow the money.

Of course, the words are eloquent, but as we know, a brilliant plan without a supporting budget is just fantasy. 

Given the gridlock in Congress and their track record of producing budgets of late, I would say,

"Welcome to Fantasy Island."