Asymmetrical Information

To be fair, the whole audience participation bit of clapping after every paragraph, no matter who is the president, is REALLY tedious. But now it's part of the political culture. If you don't want to participate, get conveniently sick. But if you are in the "principled opposition" in the US you shouldn't have to laud the President every point he makes. Sniggering is another matter, but in the British House of Commons we can see worse things happening every session. The government's back bench bellows "Hear, Hear!" and the opposition cackles and interrupts, but that is part of that House's culture. I don't think that it lessens the ability of a good speaker to make his point, and in fact gives him an opportunity to take advantage of the speaker's ability to respond to the inarticulate bellowing.

"But if you are in the "principled opposition" in the US you shouldn't have to laud the President every point he makes."

You are missing the point. I'm convinced that the Republicans would win every national election if issues truly mattered. Unfortunately, the Democrats can take for granted an incredibly high number of knee jerkers who merely "pull the lever." For instance, the blogger Asparagirl once mentioned that her Jewish parents rarely spend even a few minutes analyzing the the pluses and minuses of the respective candidates. They just vote Democrat and that's the end of it. The same holds true for many Black and Hispanic voters. On the other hand, Republicans must usually earn every vote they get. Sad, but true.

Not every vote; not even close. The Republicans have their hard-line straight-ticket voters as well: quite a lot of them. The whole point of political parties is that they're supposed to save voters the bother of studying individual candidates' positions; whether it's a good idea to accept the invitation is a different matter. To say, though, that the Republican Party has no such advantage is to say that the Republican Party might as well not exist.

Funny. I seem to recall Delay and Armey very conspicuously sitting on their hands throughout virtually all of Clinton's last SOTU. I guess they didn't pay enough attention to Newt's teachings.

Let me add that David Thomson's comments above are truly disgusting. He seems unable to accept the possibility that careful thought might lead people to oppose any Republican idea or candidate. That is the sort of blind cult-like devotion he ascribes to us Jews, blacks, and Hispanics.

Sad but true.

“The Republicans have their hard-line straight-ticket voters as well: quite a lot of them.”

Nope, that’s not even close to being accurate. Anecdotally, I have forgotten the mind boggling number of times when I’ve encountered Republican voters, including myself, experiencing a dark night of the soul and existential angst over the next election. Republicans are far more formally and informally better educated than the typical Democrat. Somethings we tend to forget this because most of us interact on a daily basis only with the better educated Democrats. This is especially true on these internet discussion groups.

The only educated group that the Democrats have long taken for granted is the Jewish vote. And these even these folks are starting to think twice about remaining Democrat. I recently viewed a discussion on C-Span between a rabbi and Senator Joseph Lieberman. Why is the Wall Street Journal, asked the rabbi, more supportive of Israel than the New York Times? Why do all these left of center Democrats intensely dislike Israel? The Connecticut Senator obviously felt uncomfortable by this line of questioning.

Bernard: DeLay and Armey sat on their hands after they voted to impeach the SOB. Why they even attended was a mystery to me. That goes to the crux of the "principled opposition". If you vote to impeach, then you can watch the speech on TV and not give the fellow the podium he wants. I'd assert that neither of these guys actually wished to reap what they had sown. But nobody in the impeachment scene really wanted to play for keeps except Bob Barr and Bill Clinton. Guess who won?

Dear Mr. Thompson,

As a sixth generation GOP'er, unless the candidate is a crook or a racist, if he's got an (R) next to his name he's got my vote. My bet is that you live on one of the coasts.

Until 1932 it was out of habit. After 1932, it was out of principle. Since 1980 it's only common sense.

david's comments wrt ticket punchers are better understood as "demographically identifiable" ticket punchers...

jewish districts are usually very dem, as are majority black districts and hispanic districts... the other demos can at best be id'd by region (different areas have different traditions, and the same demo will vote different party)

also, the margin isn't anywhere near as large in repub demos as it is in above mentioned dem groups...

it's not about policy, rather it's about perception and culture (naacp and others pursue a villification campaign against clarence thomas for vrwb.. voting republican while black)

repub's fortunes have waxed and waned dramatically over the last 30 years, especially in congress, they;'ve stolen alot of seats back from dems, whereas dems are much more a traditional party (i.e. their seats reflect what has been held for past decades...)

in that sense, the reps have actually had to go out and earn votes, while dems just tended the reservation and prevented losses...

I well remember the State of the Union speech during Clinton's impeachment, and Republicans sat on their hands during half of it, and it didn't make them look very good either.

Of course, that may have been different. But it seems to me that every SOTU, the opposition party claps only half the time. So I'm not sure you're right about this one, Megan.

I definetly recall Republicans not applauding during Clinton's speeches. In fact that was one reason I voted Republican for Congress. I was hoping if both chambers were filled with Republicans then there would be no applause during the speech and the speech would be over in 30 minutes.

They always walk a fine line. But they bungled this one. John Kerry sat when Bush said he supported liberty for the people of Iran, for Christ's sake.

Is this really an issue, though, with anyone outside of obsessive political junkies, most of whom already know who they're going to be voting for anyway? I doubt one in ten swing voters could identify John Kerry right now if he were wearing one of thosde "Hello my name is..." stickers. What were the ratings for the speech? How many of the people who will vote in the next election even bothered to watch, much less will remember who was clapping when?

I'm also with the previous poster, Jon A. My response during most of the applauses was not to look and see who was up and who was down, but to think "Oh dear god won't these lemmings sit down and shut up and let the President get on with his speech!" I certainly didn't notice Kerry not standing during the Iran bit.

The annual dog and pony show that is the SOTU address is yet one more reason to think ill of Woodrow Wilson's Presidency. The utility of an in-person, televised address may be argued for in the wake on attack, like last year, or with a war looming, like this year, but otherwise we would all be better off if the resident of 1600 PA Ave. would simply send a memo over to Capitol Hill. Of course, no modern politician can forswear an opportunity of an hour's worth of face time, so we are stuck with tiresome nonsense for the forseeable future. Oh well, there are a lot of good books to read.....

[Jews] just vote Democrat and that's the end of it. The same holds true for many Black and Hispanic voters . . . The only educated group that the Democrats have long taken for granted is the Jewish vote.

Because the aforementioned Blacks and Hispanics are, of course, uneducated. Hey, you know what I else I hear those Jews are good at? Making money. Yep -- smart, wealthy and stingy frugal.

Per David Thomson

"Republicans are far more formally and informally better educated than the typical Democrat. "

Actually, once you shake your fever and look at real data you will find that state educational levels correlate quite well with Gore's percentage of the vote in 2000. The higher the percentage of college graduates the better Gore did, in general. It's a highly significant correlation.

You're right and you're wrong, Bernard. THe percentages match, although they're wildly skewed by (as I recall) five cities so I don't know if you can claim the correlations match up all that well, but by demographic, the Republicans out-educate the Dems. Outside of University towns, that is.

Democrats those without high school degrees, with high school degrees but no college, and those with graduate degrees.

Republicans have those with bachelor's or some college.

Matches up perfectly with the economic interests of voting, really.

I don't understand why five cities "skew" the data. Aren't they part of the data? And a significant part. The consolidated New York metropolitan area has a population of 21 million, LA has 16 million. That's about 12% of the population right there. You can't call that an outlier.

And what are "university towns" and why should they be excluded? Is NY a university town (Columbia, NYU, and lots of others)? Boston, metro population about 5.5 million, clearly is. Sounds like you're trying to say Republicans are better educated as long as you ignore the places where they're not.

In any case, if you want to claim that education levels are more or less equal I won't argue. What I object to is the smug assertion, by David Thomson and some who seem to agree with him, that the superiority of Republican ideas is so self-evident that only fools or those nefarious Jews could ever be Democrats.

I do recall seeing something like what Jason posted. Perhaps he can provide us with a reference, or more specific figures. I checked on those without HS degrees and got a positive correlation with Gore percentage, but it is much weaker that the one with college graduates.

The classic definition of a university town is not just a city with lots of universities, but a city where the university/ies are the center around which everything else pretty much orbits. Hence, NYC, LA and even Boston don't qualify: university towns are smaller. The ones that come immediately to mind are Cambridge, Berkeley, Amherst, Ann Arbor, Ithaca, Madison and Gainesville.

1) Even though orchestrated clapping and synchronized standing ovations don't mean a thing to voters, the Republicans are definitely better at it than the Democrats;
2) Party-label voting has been on the decline for over 2 decades. At the extreme reaches of each end of the liberal-conservative spectrum, you will find a 10% to 20% bloc of "hard-core" voters who will vote only Republican or only Democrat. The vast majority of voters, however, "vote for the person," which is "regular talk" for saying that they split their ticket and are very comfortable doing so;
3) Across all demographics--education, age, gender, geography, income--voters ultimately vote in favor of the candidate who will further their own selfish interests. It's only natural and appropriate (our DNA prevents us from acting against our own instincts for survival and for personal gain) and taken collectively represents the surest guarantee that the interests of the majority in our society are not supplanted by the will of the minority (whether that minority represents white men, multi-millionaires, left-handed people, or World War II veterans);
4) Debating which party attracts better-educated voters is truly as pointless as debating whether more Republican angels or Democratic angels can fit on the head of a pin. More significant is the fact that the more educated a person is, the more likely they are to vote. Turnout in the 2002 presidential ("on-year" races historically have much higher total turn-out than "off-year" races) only reached 50%. So, even though democracy is geared to majority rule, 50% of Americans (disaffected/disenfranchised voters) didn't even bother to vote. These no-show voters are less educated and have significantly lower incomes than "regular voters." They do not perceive their vote as having any impact whatsoever in furthering their own self-interests or leading to any noticeable improvement in their everyday lives. The powerlessness they feel daily has conditioned them to relinquish their power to participate in the democratic process and to surrender their say in self-determination by allowing others to decide what is best for them.

David Jaroslav,

Yes. I'm familiar with that definition. I was really wondering what Jane meant by her use of the term. I was also trying to point out that she seems to me to be arbitrarily knocking significant parts of the population out of the data simply because they don't conform to her views.

BJK,

Republicans are better at synchronized thinking too.

I do agree that

"Debating which party attracts better-educated voters is ... pointless"

Tell it to Mr. Thomson.

BJK,

While I'd also agree with much of what you said, as far as I know genuine independents who do not lean toward one party or the other are fairly rare. Sure, many people will think little of splitting tickets, but that doesn't mean they'll always go 50% each way.

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