Gay Marriage

I don't know if there is any issue with such a generational divide...




It currently appears that it's only a matter time before legalization.



Nate Silver projects when each state will legalize gay marriage via a regression model with the following variables:
1. The year in which (a gay marriage type) amendment was voted upon;
2. The percentage of adults in 2008 Gallup tracking surveys who said that religion was an important part of their daily lives;
3. The percentage of white evangelicals in the state.

He projects about half of states will legalize by 2014 and the rest by 2024. I personally think the status quo bias is a bit stronger than that and it'll take a little longer...

*Edit - Nate Sliver actually projects "the dates when the model predicts that each of the 50 states would vote against a marriage ban." The dates seem a bit more resonable now, but i still would be more conservative in the projections. Though maybe we've hit a tipping point?

1979 vs. 2009

The New York Times and CBS has some nice new data out on a range of controversial issues. In this PDF, they compare the data to records they have from the late 1970s.

Here are a few I found notable:

HEALTH INSURANCE: PRIVATE ENTERPRISE VS. GOVERNMENT?

1979
Private Enterprise: 48%
Government - All Problems: 28%
Government - Emergencies: 12%
Don't know: 12%

2009
Private Enterprise: 32% (-16%)
Government - All Problems: 49% (+21%)
Government - Emergencies: 10% (-2%)
Don't know: 9% (-3%)

HOMOSEXUAL RELATIONS BETWEEN ADULTS

1979
Wrong: 62%
Not Wrong: 25%

2009
Wrong: 41% (-21%)
Not Wrong: 54% (+29%)

SHOULD MARIJUANA USE BE LEGALIZED?

1979
Yes: 27%
No: 69%

2009
Yes: 41% (+14%)
No: 52% (-17%)

WHO MAKES BETTER CARS?

1979
U.S. Automakers - 46%
Foreign Automakers - 26%

2009
U.S. Automakers - 29% (-17%)
Foreign Automakers - 55% (+29%)

Hat tip to this daily kos diary

Our (Potential) Future Surgeon General and Marijuana Legalization

Before I begin, I implore to you watch this Daily Show clip on Dr. Gupta. Aasif Mandvi does a great job. I hadn't laughed that hard in awhile. (start at minute 2 for the good stuff)

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Medicine Cabinet

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

Anyway, Dr. Gupta recently wrote an article for Time Magazine entitled "Why I would vote No on Pot". I'm pretty disappointed in this article by our (potential) future surgeon general. He brings to light both sides of the issue, but I don't think he argues his case very well.

So what did he bring up in the article (which leaves out other valid arguments for both sides):

positives of legalizing pot
- can help really sick people - those going through chemo, and those suffering from Alzheimer's
- 15 million people all ready use it, so wouldn't have to enforce law on them
- cut illegal drug trafficking and make communities safer

negatives of legalizing pot
- addiction
- affect short term memory
- impair cognitive ability
- lead to long term depression or anxiety
- can impair driving - cause accidents

First off I am disappointed by the lack of statistics. From this article I have no idea how severely pot affects short term memory, leads to long term depression, etc. A reasonable question would be, how do these negatives compare to alcohol? It seems that alcohol shares all of these negative consequences and is potentially worse in some cases. He also suggests outcomes that are rather subjective like depression, cognitive ability, etc. It is not nearly as clear cut as tobacco's relationship to lung cancer and other disease. I don't doubt his medical claims, but he should at least link to scientific/epidemiological studies supporting it.

So how authoritarian is Sanjay Gupta? Yes, it would be better medically if we banned alcohol and soda - but is it the right move for the country? There are reasonable reasons to keep marijuana illegal, but Dr. Gupta needs to bring a little more substance to his argument. Granted this was just a short article for Time Magazine, but adding links similar to Frank Rich's style at the New York Times would be refreshing.

One of my major reasons for reluctance of Gupta for Surgeon General is his lack of public health training or experience. If this is the way he would describe a public health epidemic in the future as surgeon general, consider me unimpressed.

Looking further at the Marijuana issue as a whole:

Gallup polling has explored the legalization of Marijuana question for years, and while support is still on Dr. Gupta's side the margin is eroding.



When asked if medical marijuana should be legalized, support jumps into the 70 percent range. Dr. Gupta points out that 11 states have all ready decriminalized marijuana for medical use. I honestly believe that polling (on legalization of both medical and recreational) would change if people were more informed on this subject.

For example, there is a very valid economic argument that would play well in today's economic situation.

Jeffery Miron an economist from Harvard conservatively estimates that the US could receive 14 billion dollars a year from the legalization of marijuana. "...the government would save $7.7 billion a year if it didn't have to spend money policing and prosecuting marijuana activity. Then, if the feds taxed marijuana at a rate comparable to cigarettes and booze, another $6.2 billion would come rolling in."

It will be interesting to see if any "change" is made on this issue with the Obama administration, considering it's the "#1 Idea" proposed on their site change.org.

A Look Back at my Election Predictions

Predictions:

House: D - 260, R - 175

Senate: D - 58, R- 40

Presidential EV: 368-170 Obama

Popular Vote: 53.6 to 45.1 Obama

Actual:

House: D - 257, R - 178

Senate: D - 57, R - 41 (assuming Franken wins)

Presidential EV: 365-173 Obama

Presidential PV: 52.9 to 45.7 Obama

Not too shabby. I was correct on every state except Montana, which was closer than expected. The pollsters did a pretty good job this year with all the variables they needed to take into account: the new voters, the cell phone effect, bradley effect, and the shy tory factor among others. I thought the cell phone effect would boost Obama up a little more than it did, but I was still within about 1 percentage point. I'm sure if I had confidence intervals (which I should have), the actual results would have been within them.

In the House and Senate races the republicans did a little better than expected. With Bush's favorablity rating hovering in the low 20s, it's pretty impressive how several of his supporters held onto their house seats. It's interesting that many of those who lost were on the moderate side, leaving mostly more conservative republicans left. I think this election as a whole indicates that Change was definitely desired, but the Democrats will need to show real progress in the next 2 and 4 years if they want to keep their command.

If you're interested, check out how the "expert" pundits did on predicting election. It was probably a lot of luck, but I did better than almost all of them.

Stat of the Week: Health Care Costs

According to 2005 Paul Krugman article at the New York Times:

The following is per capita spending on Health Care

United States: $5,267 on health care/ $2,364 is government spending.
Canada: $2,931 on health care / $2,048 is government spending.
France: $2,736 on health care / $2,080 is government spending.

It's amazing how high our health care spending is. Hard to believe that our government spending on health care (medicare, medicaid, etc) is more than Canada and France's govt spending! My thoughts are that the biggest faults are the administrative costs that come with our insurance system. However I'm starting to believe that United States does not evaluate health decisions correctly, for instance over-emphasizing screening that does not extend or improve lives. More on this later, but as you can see in the following graph...yeah it's a problem.

This sums it up pretty well....

Election Predictions

DataDrivenDecision's Predictions

Electoral College:

• 368 Obama Electoral Votes
• 170 McCain Electoral Votes
• (Obama takes Kerry States + IA, NM, CO, VA, NV, OH, FL, NC, MT, IN, and NE-2)
  

Popular Vote:

• 53.6 Obama Popular Vote Percentage
• 45.1 McCain Popular Vote Percentage

Senate:

• 58 Democratic Senate seats
• 40 Republican Senate seats

- Top Senate races (my prediction):
1. Minnesota (D) - closest race
2. Georgia (D)
3. North Carolina (D)
4. Kentucky (R)
5. Alaska (D)
6. Oregon (D)
7. New Hampshire (D)
8. Mississippi (R)
9. Colorado (D)
10. Nebraska (R)

House:

• 260 Democratic House seats
• 175 Republican House seats
  

Overall Commentary:
-This prediction is pretty optimistic for the Dems, but I believe the polls are currently underestimating Obama and Dem support due to the cell phone effect and the difference in "ground games". If McCain wins - the polls will have made a historic miscalculation, which the general consensus being Obama +7.
-A few reasons for a McCain underestimation would be a poor response rate for polls (phone polls ~20% which could miss unenthusiastic republican voters who will still show up to the polls - or the Shy Tory Factor), overestimating of youth vote, and possibly the Bradley effect in a few states.

What to watch for:
1. See Nate Silver's column in Newsweek for presidential race
2. Will the Dems get 58 seats in the senate (60 seat filibusterer with Is)? - Watch Ga, Ky, and Mn if it's close
-How many house seats will the Dems pick up? See my prediction above, but I'll be watching MD-01, CT-04, MN-06, AZ-04, CA-04, AK-Al, FL-21, Fl-25, MO-08, WA-09, PA-03, PA-12, SC-01, and WY-AL.

Evolution and Science in America

Via 2006 National Geographic article:
(blue = believes in evolution, red doesn't)


Selected Quotes:

-"In the U.S., only 14 percent of adults thought that evolution was "definitely true," while about a third firmly rejected the idea. "

-"The researchers cite a 2005 study finding that 78 percent of adults agreed that plants and animals had evolved from other organisms. In the same study, 62 percent also believed that God created humans without any evolutionary development."
-"Fewer than half of American adults can provide a minimal definition of DNA, the authors add. "

My thoughts:

-We need to teach and emphasize genetics much earlier in school (elementary). You can make better inferences about a wide range of topics - history, science, even English when you understand genetics.

-Since a majority of Americans are now required to go to college - all students, particularly liberal arts majors should be required to take some type of biology/genetics class. We need to avoid the hubris of humanities (NYT).

-Get more scientists in public office. According to the above NYT article, there were 218 lawyers, 12 doctors, and 3 biologists in congress in 2005. When 90 percent of our representatives probably have a weak science background, we're probably going to fall behind. See the recent examples of stem cells, climate change, research funding, and bioethics.

Election Thoughts

- Obama's is about 6 to 7 points up depending on which national tracker you look at. I consider polls have a margin of error of about 4 to 5 points, so Obama is looking pretty good now. That being said there are several reasons that election night will still be interesting.

1. McCain makes national gains in the next 3+ weeks. There are many different scenarios in which this is possible considering where the race was 2 weeks ago. I think Democrats are bit too over confident right now, if that's possible. Assuming McCain does come back there could be some crazy scenarios that I'd like to highlight.

A) Electoral Tie of 269/269. This scenario looked quite possible 2 weeks ago. Obama would have to win all Kerry State except New Hampshire (currently +5.3 obama), and McCain would have to win all Bush States except Colorado (+4.6 obama), Iowa (+10.7 obama), and New Mexico (+6.2 obama) for this to happen. With the recent Obama surge in Ohio, Florida, and Virgina - this doesn't look likely (Sliver has it at a 0.16 probablity). However if McCain made national gains, it does seem possible.

Check out the link above for more, but it looks like it would go to the newly elected house for a vote, and then a senate if as the tiebreaker. One would think this would favor the democrats - but things like popular vote, voter recounts ala florida 2000 (that would be decided by conservative supreme court), need to be taken into account.

B) Maine and Nebraska actually allocate their electoral votes by congressional district
Maine is +7.5 Obama, only 1 point above the national average. The districts in Maine vote approxamiately the same though, so McCain may want to pick one and see if he can turn it red. Nebraska is a deep red state, but has a moderate district that includes Omaha, that Obama could turn blue (but only if it's a blowout - less likely to break a 269-268 ties).

C) Election day surprises?
If it is a good day for McCain - Minnesota and Iowa. These are actually the only two "swing" states that McCain has spent more campaign money than Obama in. Democrats currently believe he's wasting his money, but if McCain mangies to surprise these could be the ones.

If it is a good day for Obama - Indiana, West Virgina, North Carolina, and Georgia. If Obama wins any of these states it will likely be a blow out. Obama's "ground game" has gotten rave reviews, so suprises could happen on these relatively red states because of several different demographic factors.

2. In case of Obama Blowout - Senate races

If Obama wins easily, the analysts will be staying up late on election night trying to figure out if the democrats are able to get a 60 seat filibuster proof majority in the senate. If this happens, it is much more likely that Obama's proposed policies will come to fruition.

Nate Silver currently projects the odds of a 60 seat majority at about 25 percent (see below). The 7 interesting states to watch will be Oregon, Minnesota, North Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Alaska. If results are less favorable for democrats, Colorado and New Hampshire should be a tight race. Basically the Dems need to turn 9 currently republican held senate seats to turn blue. 4 currently look like they are close to a lock, then Dems need 5 of those 7 states I mentioned above for the 60 seat majority. It looks doubtful, but possible.

2008 Election: State Rankings - 9/23/08

(Rank, State, Score (max=1))
1. Pennsylvania - .854
2. Michigan - .775
3. Florida - .685
4. Minnesota - .675
5. Colorado - .652
6. Wisconsin - .620
7. Washington - .589
8. New Jersey - .583
9. Ohio - .576
10. Virgina -.560
-----
Just Missed: North Carolina, New Mexico, Indiana, Oregon, Nevada
(2000 Florida would rank 1st, 2004 Ohio would rank 2nd just below Pennsylvania)

See my intro - for the explanation of the question and methods for this project.
Current National Average: +3.0 for Obama
Nate Sliver's top 5 tipping point states: Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virgina, Colorado, and Michigan

Analysis:
The states at the top seem to be more Obama leaning states possibly because of a recent Obama bump in the national polls. It's possible that some of the state data has yet to catchup with the national data. The list is filled with larger states possibly to a fault. I'm considering changing the 50/50 designation. I'd love to hear feedback.

A couple of surprises on the list:
1. Pennsylvania - seemed to be a strong obama state, but polls have been mixed lately, very close to national average
8. New Jersey - see Pa
9 and 10. Ohio and Virgina - would expect to see these states at the top of the list. Seem to be running a few points behind national average for Obama.

2008 Election: State Rankings - Intro

As we are under two months away from the Nov 4th election and a few days away from the first debate, I thought I would take a try at some statistical predictions.

Question: What state is most likely to be this years Florida (2000) or Ohio (2004)? Which one will be the "tipping point" state that decides a very close election. Several sites such as 538 have similar analyses but seem overly convoluted attempting to adjust for all confounders that are difficult to measure. I will provide a crude analysis that could be less biased than the other on the web. (I prefer the 538 one, but it is nice to having something to compare it too)

-----------
Methods:
The rankings are based off of two measures:

1. States Difference from National Average based on composites from Pollster (a popular ranking which combines all data from several pollsters - gallup, rasmussen, cnn, etc). I excluded a state more than 10 points away from national average, assuming they would not be a tipping state. We are also assuming that the election will be closely contested in terms of popular vote, or there will not be a tipping point state.

=(10-X)/10
X=State's difference from national average
*therefore a state that is exactly equal to natural average = 1*
-given .50 weight

2. # of Electoral Votes - (538 total in nation, 270 needed to be elected president)

=(State X's # of Electoral Votes)/(Largest State of Interest Electoral Votes)
*therefore Largest state in question ratio = 1*
-given .50 weight (In 2004 - New Mexico and Iowa were actually closer contested than Ohio, but did not have enough EV to "tip" the election)
-------------

Assumptions/Drawbacks:
-State data is following same trend as National data (not lagging behind)
-Confounders such as ground game, similarities to other swing states (demographics), and nation/state lag time are not involved in model
-Arbitrary weighting of state average (.5) , electoral average (.5)

What's up with the McCain Bounce?

Gallup Daily tracking poll (Sept 9)

As you can see from Gallup and other polls - John McCain has been polling much better this week. The studies suggest this is because of his VP selection of Gov. Palin and the republic convention that was held last week - and may be short lived.

My problem with the polls:
There are several problems with these daily tracking and political polls in general. The fact that they are robo calling, the lack of calling cell phones, the increased use of caller ID are a few of the many. My biggest problem, however, is with the low response rate or response bias.

The goal of a poll is to try to develop a representative sample to describe the population at interest. In our case this sample of approx 1,000 being polled is supposed to represent the general US voting population. In 2004, Bush received over 62 million votes, while Kerry received over 59 - totaling well over 100 million votes. Organizations like Gallup and Rasmussen
did a good job with their statistics, determining a good sample size and all of that. The problem is their response rate. The Pew research center found that in standard surveys (like the daily tracking poll) the response rate is 27 percent. I would wager that that number is closer to 10-15 percent these days. In Epi you want to get your response rate at least in the 70 percent range.
Gallup and Rasmussen still get their adequate sample size of say 1,000 (can't find exact #) by calling closer to 5K+ homes. They are also able to adjust for confounders such as age, race, sex, etc.

So what can we take from this? Response rate is highly dependent on enthusiasm. An explanation for the McCain bounce would be that voters are more enthusiastic about his candidacy thanks to both the selection of Palin and the convention. These voters would be more willing to now answer their phone and take a few minutes out of their day to respond to the poller's questions.

For example: Lets assume Steve is a conservative leaning independent who plans to vote for McCain. Before this past week he would have maybe just ignored the poller's call, not wanting to talk politics. The poller would then go onto the next more enthusiastic caller Andrew who would answer their questions - possibly a liberal leaning independent who is very unhappy with bush. Now this week people like Steve are more willing to talk - and therefore the poller wouldn't reach people like Andrew once their sample size has become adequate. The factor has been seen in the British election and is called the Shy Tary Factor.

The democrats saw a smaller bump after the Biden announcement and their convention possibly because their base voters were all ready very enthusiastic. Also because the events all kind of overlapped in a short period of time. The real question is - would unenthusiastic Steve who will not answer the polling question still end up voting on Nov. 4th? I think most will.

The real statistic that would be most helpful to test this hypothesis is the response rate for each day of tracking and for each group - republicans, democrats, and independents.

Conclusion:
I think the bounce will eventually go down, but I don't think it matters. My advice: Ignore daily tracking polls until they discuss and alleviate some of the response bias problems.

(see 538 for Nate Silver's thoughts on the subject)

Gas Prices should be higher...

A discussion on the cost of gasoline:

“This price reflects only the cost of discovering the oil, pumping it to the surface, refining it into gasoline, and delivering the gas to service stations. It overlooks the costs of climate change as well as the costs of tax subsidies to the oil industry, the bludgeoning military costs of protecting access to oil in the politically unstable Middle East, and the health care costs for treating respiratory illnesses from breathing polluted air.” (p. 7)
-Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, Third Edition (Lester Brown)

Sounds about right to me....