We all get them - those emails from conservative friends & relatives who have drunk deeply of the Kool-Aid, who can't wait to share with the whole world the latest lies they've imbibed from Rush, Glenn, and Mr. I-saw-it-on-the-internet-so-it-must-be-true.
Today I read a column in the SF Chronicle, in which the writer, Yagil Hertzberg, uses objective criteria to rate the political parties - not their leaders, but the accomplishments of the parties while in office.
http://www.sfgate.com/...
Follow me below the fold to see how Hertzberg's "Consumer Reports" approach to voting, in which he refers to the two major parties as A or B to avoid automatic bias based on personal party identification, plays out.
Here is Hertzberg's premise & approach...
For years I have been trying to persuade supporters of the other major American party to change their mind and vote with me, to no avail. That is, until last week, when three politically minded friends came over for an evening of snacks and politics, and, halfway through the evening, I unleashed my new one-two approach to political persuasion.
First, I asked my friends how they would go about choosing a new dishwasher. We agreed that the responsible and rewarding method would be to ignore any marketing hype and instead follow the Best Buy recommendations by Consumer Reports. Because nobody mentioned the virtues or shortcomings of, say, Whirlpool's executives as a valid criterion for choosing the appliance, I asked why they argue for hours about the perceived personalities of the candidates instead of comparing the track records of the major parties. My friends answered that it's simple enough to summarize the essential properties of dishwashers, while the elections are about a large number of issues that defy easy tabulation. Therefore, they concentrate on the candidates, hoping that by choosing the right person for the job, the elected official will make the right decisions when dealing with all those different issues.
I used to share this view myself, but then I checked the numbers. I was surprised to find out that the results of comparing the track records of the two major parties fall neatly (with one exception) into two categories - economy and family values. In my analysis, I compared all administrations going back to 1960 and all states based on how they voted in the presidential elections since 1980.
Some sample questions on the Economy:
Productivity: The gross state product of the 20 states that voted for the A Party candidate at least 5 times out of the last 8 elections (let's call them the A states) is 15 percent higher than the other states (the B states).
Household income: The median household income in the A states is 16 percent higher than in the B states.
Poverty: The percentage of persons below the poverty level in the A states is 21 percent lower than in the B states
And on Family Values:
Birth to teenagers: The teenage birth rate in the C states is 38 percent lower than in the D states.
Birth to unmarried women: The unmarried women birth rate in the C states is 7 percent lower than in the D states.
Infant mortality: Children born in C states are 24 percent less likely to die before their first birthday than children in D states.
Do I even need to tell you the results? In 14 of 15 categories, Democratic governments have achieved better objective outcomes than Republican administrations.
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