Tom Hayes: What would the Founding Fathers make of politics on Facebook?

It's clear that collectively the political activists supporting Barack Obama's campaign got used to knowing - or thinking they knew - what was going on with the campaign. Reading David Plouffe's book might open a few eyes to the reality, which was anything but glamorous in his account.

Obama laid his cards on the table, as many documented during the campaign, and managed to make the election a referendum on his agenda despite the best efforts of his opponents to make it a vote on his "not like me-ness." Of course, the reasons for voting for him were diverse -- hence it was a coalition that put him into office based on a wide variety of individual beliefs and convictions about what it was possible to improve in D.C.

Some supporters (and many detractors,) for instance, failed to listen closely to his intentions for Afghanistan, choosing to assume his statements about being against "dumb wars" in general and Iraq in particular meant he'd back out of any situation overseas where bullets and bombs are flying.

It's disconcerting to others to realize that increasing the transparency of the government, which Obama also advocated, isn't exactly tantamount to inviting activists and reporters into the negotiating sessions necessitated by the arcane rules and strictures of the Congress. 

Most (not all) political activists on both sides of the major issues know that progress is fundamentally based on compromise(s) to achieve what is possible, no matter if it's making decisions in the local school PTA or the U.S. Senate.  Compromises acceptable to the majority by definition almost always fall short of the ideals of those with the strongest convictions.

Unlike the PTA, which is pretty much open to all comers, the U.S. Congress reaches compromise by a not-terribly-pretty process involving just over 500 powerful, influential, sometimes self-serving people expected to do right by the entire country while being inundated with conflicting suggestions. Expecting to see inside that process is a bit - well - idealistic for those sitting at home or working for the media, even if that is what they thought they had bargained for in electing the new President.

That's not how a Democratic Republic works. We don't hold referendums on every issue; we elect folks who seem to hold similar ideals to us and hope they manage to accomplish exactly what we want them to. That's why it's so easy to predict that polls almost always reflect the popularity of a President as in decline - at any given point in time politicians are working on decisions bound to challenge our "collective" opinion precisely because we charge them with handling the hardest and most important decisions.

Now, to balance out the curiously persistent tea baggers who apparently favor a system based on government as minimal and ineffectual as the one in Somalia, some of the hundreds of millions on Facebook are banding together on a "fan page" supporting President Obama, and not second-guessing him. The Founding Fathers must surely be smiling.

Thomas Hayes is an entrepreneur, journalist, and political analyst who contributes regularly to a host of web sites on topics ranging from economics and politics to culture and community.

Members of Congress who voted for the Stupak ban are expressing “buyer’s remorse”

Members of Congress have been saying in public interviews that they didn’t realize the impact of Stupak's amendment before they voted for this proposal. Now that they have come to fully appreciate the impact of the Stupak ban they're rethinking their positions. Like President Obama, members of the House are indicating that the Stupak amendment went too far.

The Stupak ban would prohibit any coverage of abortion in the new "exchange," or marketplace, established by health reform. This ban would apply to both the proposed public option and to private plans.

Currently, a majority of private health insurance plans cover abortion care - even the one offered to employees of the Republican National Committee. But if your employer obtains your insurance in the future through the new exchange you will lose that coverage.

There is an alternative.

The Capps compromise, worked out by both pro-choice and anti-choice members of Congress, ensures that no federal funding would be used to pay for abortions while also ensuring that women do not lose the benefits they currently have. Under Capps, no federal funds would be used for abortion. The funds would be segregated from private dollars.

Thomas Hayes is an entrepreneur, journalist, and political analyst who contributes regularly to a host of web sites on topics ranging from economics and politics to culture and community.

The problem with polls, and the media (including the blogosphere.)

Polling can always tell us whatever the person who constructs/conducts the poll was investigating - if we're given the raw data and a good description of the sampling procedure. But in practice even the data is usually glossed over in favor of a sound-bite summary tending to support the interests of the person and/or network doing the reporting on it.

Unless you know about how the sample of people was selected you really can't know anything more than what's reported about a poll. You can't know, for instance, if its findings are useful in any logical sense, because you don't know who the sample represents.  I can ask 21 people a question, and come back with really convincing looking numbers, but if I select who 15-20 of those people are it will darn sure tell you what I want you to think I learned.

An example of shaping a poll

Imagine I go to a GOP Town Hall meeting, and survey 15 people wearing shirts or carrying signs that say either "Nobama," or, "Joe Wilson was right!" I'll ask them one simple question:

Are you a) "for" Obama's government takeover of our health care system that he's pushing through the congress under the name of "reform" or b) "against reform" that will make changes that undermine the free market system that has given us the best health care in the world and cost the tax payers even more money?

OK, I've plausibly got 15 "b) against reform" responses now in my hypothetical example.  I'll ask 6 additional people, more or less randomly selected, and let's say they most of them magically favor reform (not likely, is it? But for the sake of argument, I'm getting 4 out of 6 favorable replies.)  I didn't even tack on the line about paying for illegal immigrants.

Now I'll report back for you based on that (fake) survey:

"In a [hypothetical] survey conducted Wednesday, only 19% of those responding favor the proposed reforms to health care, while  nearly 81% said they were 'against change.' That's more than 4 out of 5 in our survey who are hoping their representatives in Congress will stop the President's take-over of business."

If you believe what anybody in the media tells you without understanding both the sample and the data, all you know is what the reporter's boss wants you to believe. If you choose to believe on that basis - which you just might if it agrees with your political leanings - rather than examining the poll itself, then you're gullible indeed.  The good news is: the politicians on your side and the ratings-hungry networks (who are on the side of earning a living from ad revenues) both love you. They'll go out of their way to validate your "wisdom and insight" into the issue.

If the poll isn't conducted on a random sample, but merely open to those who respond...? Well, my friends, that will tell you a bit about the people who responded, of course, but one must be wary of extrapolating to draw any useful conclusions about a larger population. We call it spin. But knowing that they're gaming us doesn't stop the echoes.

How the media deliberately spreads misinformation

In fact, it won't surprise me to find this utterly fake survey example quoted elsewhere within days, if not hours.  Can't you see it, at DIGG maybe, or on another blog, or even on Fox?

A post at a prominent, liberal-leaning blog on Wednesday described a survey which concluded that, quote, "only 19% of those responding favor the proposed reforms to health care, while nearly 81% said they were 'against change.'" In other words, that's more than 4 out of 5 who want their representatives in Congress to stop the President's assault on insurance providers and let capitalism work.  

There you go, it's been lifted carefully out of context, and the quote is nearly character for character what I made up in the "report" above, and then the media echoes will persist even though the numbers are clearly unreal.  You see, now they're not reporting on the survey, they're reporting on the reporting, which is just an excuse to keep repeating the misleading numbers.

Misinformation mars the debate. I could easily have made the example go the opposite way, of course, but I don't want somebody to echo a story that falsely represents support for reform.  In fact, worded carefully surveys do reveal that over 90% favor "at least some reform."  But then, who wouldn't favor "at least some" unless they were making money from the insurance industry? It's like asking who wants lower taxes without considering how you'd pay for those government services you realize you benefit from.

You know that commercial media outlets rely on advertising revenues. So, do you follow the money? Better yet, why do you trust who you always have to report on things you care about?