Nate Silver, April 16--It's a Southern Thing:
I promised that I wasn't going to put much more work into estimating crowd sizes for yesterday's tea party events, but here is one last update. The important thing is that we now have a credible estimate for Atlanta at 15,000 persons; we were previously relying on an estimate of 7,000 that the Atlanta Journal-Constitution had initially made yesterday evening but then pulled back upon.
It's not surprising that Atlanta had the largest turnout (in fact, the largest turnout by far, according to our collection of nonpartisan estimates). Turnout was much higher in state capitals than in other cities, and seems to have been much larger in the South than in other regions of the country. Atlanta, being by far the largest Southern state capital, therefore did very well
Nate Silver, April 22--It's A Non-Southern Thing:
Are the Republicans Going Galt?
by Nate Silver @ 1:36 PM
Are Republicans turning into libertarians?
Last week's Tea Party protests had their origins in the libertarian movement. Although many conservative groups were eager to co-opt their purpose, the core of the message -- anti-tax, anti-big government -- was about as libertarian as it gets. Participation in the rallies was also proportionately quite high in areas like New Hampshire and the Interior West, which are traditionally more sympathetic toward libertarian concerns.
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| The first time out, it seemed like Nate had a point. Totaling up the numbers he provided, the top 55 cities, all those having 2,000 or more attendees, there were 173,275 total attendees, of whom 80,500 were in Southern states, for 46.5% of the total.
The second time? Well, the second time, it runs afoul of relying on stereotypes. Because although it's certain that libertarian rhetoric plays well in the Mountain West, the idea that there's a heavy libertarian streak that shows up in issue attitudes across the boards, well, that's just another one of those myths that Nate himself ought to be aware of. I blogged about it here last year, in fact, in "The Myth of the Libertarian West", which used a composite measure of support for spending using 8 variables from the General Social Survey:
In fact, when it comes to levels of support for spending on domestic government programs, there is very little difference between the regions, as one can tell from just a cursory glance at the following table, based on combined measure of suport for eight domestic spending items tracked by the General Social Survey:
Domestic Spending Preferences
By Region | | | Northeast | Midwest | South | West | MUCH TOO LITTLE
5-8 Items Net | 20.8 | 19.6 | 20.4 | 20.7 | TOO LITTLE
1-4 Items Net | 56.8 | 54.6 | 53.2 | 54.6 | ABOUT RIGHT
Net | 8.9 | 9.7 | 10.1 | 8.8 | TOO MUCH
1-8 Items Net | 13.5 | 16.1 | 16.3 | 16.0 |
Now, you might object that the "West" jams together California with all its coastal elites alongside the "true Westerners" from states like Idaho, Montana and Nevada. So here's a breakdown of the West into its two sub-regions:
Domestic Spending Preferences
Within The West | | | MOUNTAIN | PACIFIC | MUCH TOO LITTLE
5-8 Items Net | 18.4 | 21.7 | TOO LITTLE
1-4 Items Net | 55.8 | 54.0 | ABOUT RIGHT
Net | 8.7 | 8.8 | TOO MUCH
1-8 Items Net | 17.1 | 15.5 |
As you can see, there's a slight difference between the two, but the big picture story is exactly the same: there is much more support for spending more than for spending less.
Now, I'm not for a moment suggesting that there's nothing at all behind the perception of a libertarian West. But I am suggesting that it's a good deal more complicated than your average would-be pundit supposes. And these figures offer indisputable proof.
The same pattern could be seen, looking only at conservatives:
As can be seen in the chart just below, when it comes to domestic spending preferences, there is little in the way of regional differences among conservatives as well:
Domestic Spending Preferences
Of Conservatives By Region | | | Northeast | Midwest | South | West | MUCH TOO LITTLE
5-8 Items Net | 12.7 | 13.4 | 14.5 | 12.6 | TOO LITTLE
1-4 Items Net | 52.9 | 51.8 | 50.7 | 52.9 | ABOUT RIGHT
Net | 12.2 | 10.7 | 11.1 | 9.7 | TOO MUCH
1-8 Items Net | 22.3 | 24.2 | 23.8 | 24.8 |
Again, we check the Mountain West in contrast to the Pacific Coast, and find only a superficially noticable differnce on the top line (more spending for 5-8 items), but no significant difference overall: there are still more conservatives who favor spending more (with numbers in the 60s) compared to those who favor spending less (with numbers in the 20s).
Domestic Spending Preferences
Among Conservatives
Within The West | | | MOUNTAIN | PACIFIC | MUCH TOO LITTLE
5-8 Items Net | 9.8 | 13.9 | TOO LITTLE
1-4 Items Net | 53.1 | 52.8 | ABOUT RIGHT
Net | 10.9 | 9.2 | TOO MUCH
1-8 Items Net | 26.2 | 24.1 |
Summarizing the above, we find only about a 4% difference in those saying we spend "too much" between the Mountain West and Northeast, where those numbers are lowest. The same is true when limit ourselves to conservatives. But the difference between conservatives and everyone is about 9% in each of the two regions--an ideological difference more than twice as big as the inter-regional differences. Even so, however, among conservatives in the Mountain West, more than twice as many think we are spending too little, rather than too much. This is far from a winning position on the issues. Which throws a far different light on the supposedly "extraneous" aspects of the "Tea Parties", such as the accusations that Obama is not really an American. To wit: these demonstrations were not reflective of the general populations of the states they came from, even among conservatives. They were refleective of the mobilizing power of movement conservatism, primarily through hegemonic infrastructure such as Fox News and rightwing talk radio.
Later in his "Going Galt" diary, Silver cites the following as further evidence of the GOP going libertarian:
-- The Republican alternative budget could be considered a somewhat radical experiment in libertarianism, dramatically slashing taxes while promising to balance budgets -- an achievement that would only be possible if the size of the government were cut enormously. Meanwhile, the Republicans, with help from some Democrats, stuck into the budget debate an amendment to curb the estate tax, which will cost the government about $100 billion in revenue annually.
But note that this imputes a good deal of reasoning that's far more disciplined than anything visible on the signs seen among the tea-baggers at their recent parties. There's a reason for the sharp difference between reality and Nate Silver's rational reconstruction thereof.
Both the tea-baggers and Nate Silver are out of touch with reality, only in different ways. |
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