andrew_gelman_stats andrew_gelman_stats-2011 andrew_gelman_stats-2011-508 knowledge-graph by maker-knowledge-mining
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Introduction: The other day I posted some evidence that, however things used to be, congressional elections are increasingly nationalized, and it’s time to retire Tip O’Neill’s slogan, “all politics is local.” (The discussion started with a remark by O.G. blogger Mickey Kaus; I also explain why I disagree with Jonathan Bernstein’s disagreement with me.) Alan Abramowitz writes in with an analysis of National Election Study from a recent paper of his: Average Correlations of House and Senate Votes with Presidential Job Evaluations by Decade Decade House.Vote Senate.Vote 1972-1980 .31 .28 1982-1990 .39 .42 1992-2000 .43 .50 2002-2008 .51 .57 This indeed seems like strong evidence of nationalization, consistent with other things we’ve seen. I a
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1 The other day I posted some evidence that, however things used to be, congressional elections are increasingly nationalized, and it’s time to retire Tip O’Neill’s slogan, “all politics is local. [sent-1, score-0.606]
2 57 This indeed seems like strong evidence of nationalization, consistent with other things we’ve seen. [sent-15, score-0.156]
3 I also like Abramowitz’s secret-weapon-style analysis, breaking the data up by decade rather than throwing all the data in at once and trying to estimate a trend. [sent-16, score-0.152]
4 Scanlon wrote: As a BC grad who spent many hours studying politics in a library named after Tip, I must say I think you misunderstand the saying “All politics is local” in the context in which he originally coined it. [sent-20, score-0.914]
5 The phrase, if I remember correctly (though I’d have to dust off my copy of his memoir “Man of the House”), comes from the first time he ran for city council in Cambridge. [sent-21, score-0.369]
6 On Election Day, he saw a woman who lived near him named Mrs. [sent-23, score-0.207]
7 When she replied that she had in fact not voted for him, he was appalled. [sent-25, score-0.164]
8 After all, he lived next to her for years, had shoveled her driveway, etc. [sent-26, score-0.116]
9 When he asked why she didn’t voted for him, she responded: “Because you never asked. [sent-27, score-0.164]
10 ” It was based on that experience that he coined the phrase, not because he felt that local concerns outweigh national ones but rather that never forgetting your roots and taking things for granted is a recipe for disaster in politics. [sent-29, score-1.07]
11 To me, Tip meant the phrase to mean a lot more than simply being well connected in the clubby world of local politics (though he certainly placed high stock in that); it meant staying on top of things in your district. [sent-30, score-1.115]
12 In doing so, you are not untouchable in wave elections but it certainly can make a difference as was the case in several House districts last fall. [sent-31, score-0.152]
13 I agree that “all politics is local” when you’re running for city council! [sent-33, score-0.46]
14 My problem is the common use of O’Neill’s quotation to imply that local politics is all-important even for U. [sent-34, score-0.684]
15 I agree with Scanlon that the “local” in the O’Neill phrase relates to direct work with constituents rather than backroom dealing. [sent-38, score-0.415]
16 That’s why I thought Bernstein’s objections to my argument were beside the point. [sent-39, score-0.14]
17 I agree that local politics can make a difference–all the evidence shows that (a) there is an incumbency advantage and (b) this advantage varies, with some incumbents being stronger than others. [sent-41, score-1.012]
18 But local politics doesn’t matter as much as it used to, and national factors seem to me to be much more decisive. [sent-42, score-0.718]
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