RE: The Vote-Cost of Scandal
I don't believe Gary Hart was ruined by scandal, per se. First, he supported a very unpopular, but I think kinda OK, 50 cent/gal tax on gasoline. When gas about $1/ gal (including taxes). This made the unsure very unsure. Only second did he publicly claim something like he would never cheat/ have an affair ... and reporters are welcome to follow him ... and then he did have an affair and it was seen by the reporters who followed him. It wasn't even so much hypocrisy, like Bennett's critics of his (because his gambling) moralizing -- it was Hart's public lie. I am honest, no affairs, you can follow me ... what a joke. I actually think this was most like George I read my lips ... followed by a tax increase, and a total loss of credibility. And as I write this, the flap about WMDs is because Bush II, and Blair, essentially guaranteed that Iraq had them. Not finding them becomes a threat to their ability to guarantee anything; no trust, no vote. Clinton's scandal(s) did not materially affect his supporter's trust in him on the issues. Tom Grey --- Steve Miller wrote: Maybe what angers voters is not the scandal, but hypocrisy. Someone who is perceived as liberal on social issues is less of a hypocrite for having an affair than is someone who runs on a family values platform. Gary Hart was a liberal in good standing, but he is the textbook case of a politician ruined by a scandal. Clinton is probably a bigger hypocrite given his effort to co-opt the family values stuff. -- Prof. Bryan Caplan
Re: The Vote-Cost of Scandal
Hart went on a boat with Donna Rice and two other friends. The media never had any more evidence than that that he had an affair, but they crucified him for having an affair just the same. The same news media for months pretended that they didn't beieve that Clinton was having sex with Monica, and played it up as a plot of the evil Religious Right. Last time around it took years to find Saddam's hidden WMD. This time in a matter of weeks we've found protective gear, vaccines, shell for delivering chemical/biological agents, Iraqis who worked on the WMD, and 18 buried mobile biological warefare labs. I'm not clear why anyone still thinks we haven't found WMD. Are we waiting until American soldiers come down with anthrax? You'll also recall that Mush II cited Iraqi support for Al Queda as a reason to go to war. Nobody seems to recall that anymore, but we have found Al Queda agents in Iraqi--and of course the Al Queda training camp up in the north of Iraq. In a message dated 6/3/03 9:59:02 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I don't believe Gary Hart was ruined by scandal, per se. First, he supported a very unpopular, but I think kinda OK, 50 cent/gal tax on gasoline. When gas about $1/ gal (including taxes). This made the unsure very unsure. Only second did he publicly claim something like he would never cheat/ have an affair ... and reporters are welcome to follow him ... and then he did have an affair and it was seen by the reporters who followed him. It wasn't even so much hypocrisy, like Bennett's critics of his (because his gambling) moralizing -- it was Hart's public lie. I am honest, no affairs, you can follow me ... what a joke. I actually think this was most like George I read my lips ... followed by a tax increase, and a total loss of credibility. And as I write this, the flap about WMDs is because Bush II, and Blair, essentially guaranteed that Iraq had them. Not finding them becomes a threat to their ability to guarantee anything; no trust, no vote. Clinton's scandal(s) did not materially affect his supporter's trust in him on the issues. Tom Grey
The Vote-Cost of Scandal
The Lewinsky scandal, according to most public opinion scholars, actually increased Clinton's popularity. But even after Lewinsky, politicians have continued to resign or drop out of races in the face of similar scandals, and of course they did it for a long time before. What is going on? 1. The usual rules do not apply to Clinton - the public will punish other politicians for comparable actions. 2. Politicians systematically overestimate voters' reactions. 3. Public opinion has changed. Pre-Clinton, scandals mattered. Now they don't. Politicians are still learning about this regime change. -- Prof. Bryan Caplan Department of Economics George Mason University http://www.bcaplan.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] The game of just supposing Is the sweetest game I know... And if the things we dream about Don't happen to be so, That's just an unimportant technicality. Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein, *Showboat*
Re: The Vote-Cost of Scandal
Do I have to avoid a preference-based explanation? What if I dig up some evidence of trends in human behavior that support my claim? Maybe what angers voters is not the scandal, but hypocrisy. Someone who is perceived as liberal on social issues is less of a hypocrite for having an affair than is someone who runs on a family values platform. But I can only pretend to know how most voters think. Many surveys give me a good idea of *what* they think, but why is another matter. on 6/2/03 1:26 PM, Bryan Caplan at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The Lewinsky scandal, according to most public opinion scholars, actually increased Clinton's popularity. But even after Lewinsky, politicians have continued to resign or drop out of races in the face of similar scandals, and of course they did it for a long time before. What is going on? 1. The usual rules do not apply to Clinton - the public will punish other politicians for comparable actions. 2. Politicians systematically overestimate voters' reactions. 3. Public opinion has changed. Pre-Clinton, scandals mattered. Now they don't. Politicians are still learning about this regime change.
Re: The Vote-Cost of Scandal
Steve Miller wrote: Maybe what angers voters is not the scandal, but hypocrisy. Someone who is perceived as liberal on social issues is less of a hypocrite for having an affair than is someone who runs on a family values platform. Gary Hart was a liberal in good standing, but he is the textbook case of a politician ruined by a scandal. Clinton is probably a bigger hypocrite given his effort to co-opt the family values stuff. -- Prof. Bryan Caplan Department of Economics George Mason University http://www.bcaplan.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] But being alone he had begun to conceive thoughts of his own unlike those of his brethren. --J.R.R. Tolkien, *The Silmarillion*
Re: The Vote-Cost of Scandal
In a message dated 6/3/03 12:32:32 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Steve Miller wrote: Maybe what angers voters is not the scandal, but hypocrisy. Someone who is perceived as liberal on social issues is less of a hypocrite for having an affair than is someone who runs on a family values platform. Gary Hart was a liberal in good standing, but he is the textbook case of a politician ruined by a scandal. Clinton is probably a bigger hypocrite given his effort to co-opt the family values stuff. In all fairness Gary Hart was a pro-gun, pro-free-trade Democrat from Colorado (where I lived at the time) and thus was not a libera in good standing. Leaders of the liberal East Coast and Midwestern Democratic Party bitterly resented Hart's positions on the issues and their allies in the news media took Hart apart over his perceived infidelties even as they apologized later for Clinton's. Which brings up another theory on why some politicians resign over scandals and some don't: that the mainstream news media has a heavy influence on public opinion, and that the same news media tend to favor liberals over conservatives, such that someone perceived by people in the media as conservative gets roasted while someone perceived as liberal gets cover sympathetically. LIkewise Bobby Byrd, kind of Democatic party pork-barrel, gets a total pass on having actually belongs to the KKK, while Trent Lott gets roasted for making one complimentary comment about Strom Thurmond's presidential bid made before most of the current population was even born. David Levenstam
Re: The Vote-Cost of Scandal
But at least I've explained away Packwood, Livingston, etc. ;-) on 6/3/03 12:23 AM, Bryan Caplan at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Steve Miller wrote: Maybe what angers voters is not the scandal, but hypocrisy. Someone who is perceived as liberal on social issues is less of a hypocrite for having an affair than is someone who runs on a family values platform. Gary Hart was a liberal in good standing, but he is the textbook case of a politician ruined by a scandal. Clinton is probably a bigger hypocrite given his effort to co-opt the family values stuff.
