David Leonhardt points to another example of partisanship bias, this one from the latest Gallup Poll:
Despite Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s solid roots in the Bush administration, new Gallup polling finds 64% of Democrats nationwide feeling confident in Bernanke’s input on the economy, compared with only 36% of Republicans. This is a complete reversal of the Fed chairman’s image among partisans a year ago, under President Bush, when Republicans had the greater confidence in Bernanke, 61% vs. 40%.
This may not be the best example. In the last year Bernanke has proven himself much more interventionist than observers likely expected given his academic reputation as a conservative. Thus, it is easy to tell a story whereby Bernanke has won over Democrats and alienated Republicans because of his policies, not because of a change in the White House.
The Fed was created as an independent institution but Fed Chairmen pay
attention to elections and to who is in the White House. That explains at
least in part the shift in relative support among Republicans and Democrats for
Chairman Bernanke.
I guess it would prove first-past-the-post is complete shit. I’m sure it was state-of-the-fucking-art in the late 18th century.
I guess it really proves first-past-the-post is complete shit. I’m sure it was state-of-the-fucking-art in the late 18th century.
Typo: I meant “two party system,” not “two party equilibrium.
Dozens of parties surviving in equilibrium, however, gives non-median voters excessive say in coalition governments: witness the control the Orthodox Jewish minority has over secular Israeli life because their single-issue parties are critical to governing coalitions. It’s far from clear that a new government nearly every year, as in Italy, is preferable to a two-party system.
As Richard says in comment #1, people may feel that new facts have come to light between the two polls. Changing your mind is not necessarily indicative of partisan bias.
Current education policies in the US regarding evolution reflect the median voter, for better or worse: only 13% of Americans believe in naturalistic evolution, another 38% believe in theistic evolution — and creationism isn’t taught in a single American school district.
Only 18% of Americans are willing to raise gas taxes 50 cents to adjust for global warming, even though it would be impossible to have carbon limitations without a substantially higher gas tax.
As for the public choice problems of special interests such as UAW in two-party politics, you have not demonstrated that those problems are even slightly dissipated by proportional representation, rather than exacerbated.
i was unhappy when Bernanke was named and I he has not changed my opinion.
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