PoliSciPundit » Donald Gooch

Happy Fourth of July!

Donald Gooch — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 22:34:25 +0000

Greatest Play in the History of Sports

Donald Gooch — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 21:51:19 +0000

Happy Independence Day!

Courier Article on Arkansas Races

Donald Gooch — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 02:00:26 +0000

I am quoted in a recent article by the Courier on the Arkansas primary races. I talk about the headwind the Democrats face in Arkansas in 2010 and the fact that Boozeman is the clear favorite against either potential Democratic nominee. Lincoln of course ended up sqeeking out a win despite the fact that you can generally expect voters from other candidates to break against the incumbent in a runoff. I think part of Halter’s problem, as I’ve mentioned before, was the fact his run was so publicly financed by outside groups like SEIU (a public sector union). While Halter had 2 to 1 adds against Lincoln…that edge was provided by the outside groups. And while any ad helps with name recognition I felt that the strongly tilt-left outside ads actually worked against Halter. Generally speaking you don’t win in Arkansas by running to the Left and the ads Halter had on his behalf from the outside groups uniformly attacked Lincoln from the Left. Those ads are effective in California, New York, and Massachusetts…but not so much in the South.

Multi-Member Cumulative Voting in New York

Donald Gooch — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 21:13:11 +0000

I discussed cumulative voting as a potential alternative to FPTP, SMD’s with respect to congressional voting. We saw the Alabama Chilton county example in class, and now comes an example in New York. I had mentioned that we cannot ignore these alternatives because there has been a growing trend in judicial circles towards these kinds of solutions to percieved diviersity problems in representative bodies. Here we see just such an example, as this example of MMCV comes as a consequence of judicial fiat.

Deadliest Catch Share – ToC Solution

Donald Gooch — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 18:02:23 +0000

We talked about the Tragedy of the Commons in class. Here is a neat video from Reason.com that talks about this collective action problem and how a new government policy might be a solution to the ToC in ocean fisheries (hint: I talked about this solution as well):

We Remember

Donald Gooch — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 05:04:39 +0000

Memorial Day

Donald Gooch — Mon, 31 May 2010 23:09:10 +0000

Pictures and a thousand words.

Live Stream of the Oil Spill

Donald Gooch — Thu, 27 May 2010 18:03:09 +0000

Can be seen here.

Wrong Turn…

Donald Gooch — Wed, 19 May 2010 23:18:05 +0000

Selecting on the Dependent Variable?

Donald Gooch — Wed, 19 May 2010 22:53:58 +0000

Barry Friedman has written a book on the Supreme Court and the public called The Will of the People: How Public Opinion Has Influenced the Supreme Court and shaped the Meaning of the Constitution. His argument is that the Court follows public opinion for the most part. However, the cases he looks at are limited to salient cases. A participant in a chat on Barry’s book raises the issue of selection bias:

[Comment From Adam Liptak, NYTAdam Liptak, NYT: ]
You say your claim is limited to “salient” issues and I wonder if you might say something about what you mean by the term. Does the principle of salience allow you to cherry pick examples that work for your theory?

Tuesday May 18, 2010 2:05 Adam Liptak, NYT
2:05 Barry: what good’s a theory, adam, if its author can’t cherry pick the cases?

Tuesday May 18, 2010 2:05 Barry
2:06 Barry: i think though that most salient examples fit the theory. but there are exceptions and the real value of the theory is figuring out what is different about them. so, the first amendment is an area in which the court often bucks the tide; think of school prayer, flag burning . . .

Barry’s answer isn’t particularly satisfactory. The problem with accepting his evidence on the Supreme Court and its sensititivity to public opinion is that he has selected cases that…he expects the public to be very sensitive to. IOW, he has selected his cases on his dependent variable. You aren’t supposed to select cases that “fit” your theory. Rather, you’re supposed to select cases *representative* of the population from which you are estimating parameters (or qualitiatively assessing select examples). Then that sample can serve as a database with which you can *test* your thesis to see if it *does* fit the selected cases. Choosing cases because you think they fit your thesis is classically bad research design. Confirmation bias in sampling. I haven’t read the book and so I can’t speak to the rest of it, but this is a fairly bad mistake to make in designing his inquiry, and hence I would hesitate to rely on his evidence as confirmation of his thesis…a thesis I am sympathetic to.