http://iemweb.biz.uiowa.edu/graphs/graph_Pres08_WTA.cfm

Dr. Egon Spengler: There’s something very important I forgot to tell you.
Dr. Peter Venkman: What?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Don’t cross the streams.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Why?
Dr. Egon Spengler: It would be bad.
Dr. Peter Venkman: I’m fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean, “bad?”
Dr. Egon Spengler: Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.
Dr Ray Stantz: Total protonic reversal.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Right. That’s bad. Okay. All right. Important safety tip. Thanks, Egon.

I laugh so that I do not cry.

If we had a functioning press, the BYO-rape-kit story would be plastered all over every tv and newspaper in the country. At the very least, it would get about a thousand times more coverage than the lipstick-on-a-pig pseudo-story. For those who haven't heard the whole story:

1. Wasilla, AK, during Palin's term as mayor, had a policy whereby police would charge sexual assault victims for the cost of rape kits. That's right, the police under Palin's command charged violent crime victims for gathering evidence on the their behalf. Can you imagine charging murder victims' families for taking fingerprints, running balistics, etc. That's not a police department, that's a protection racket.

2. The Alaska state legislature, specifically in order to stop Wasilla from continuing this practice, passed a law preventing police departments from charging sexual assault victims for rape kits.

3. Abject horror was not the Alaska legislature's only motive in passing the law. They also wanted the state to be eligible for federal funding under the 1994 Violence Against Women Act, which carried the condition that neither state nor municipal law enforcement charged sexual assault victims for rape kits. Wasilla police policy was a barrier to that funding.

4. The provision of the VAWA conditioning funding on this prohibition was pushed through congress by none other than...wait for it...Democractic VP candidate Joe Biden.

5. The provision was opposed by none other than...wait for it...Republican Presidential candidate John McCain.

So, we have three actors. One wrote the protection for women. One opposed the protection for women. One had to be forced by her state legislature to comply with the protection for women. Both actors on the wrong side of protecting women against sexual assault are on the Republican ticket. The actor on the right side is on the Democratic ticket.

This is a very simple part of our democratic process. Politicians, among other things, make policy. Some politicians oppose that policy. Some violate that policy. If we like the policy, we need to elect politicians that will make it happen, and defeat those politicians that oppose and/or violate it. Now, lots of policies are difficult to assess. A lot of times, we only know what we want the outcome to be, and we fight over how to achieve it. Occasionally, issues are sufficiently simple that the general public can tell both what's right and how to get there. Lifting the financial burden of collecting evidence off of back of rape victims is one of these issues.

A lot of conservatives seem to hate VAWA (big surprise). They will likely bring up two things.

1. Conservatives will say that even the ACLU opposed the Violence Against Women Act. This was true, at first. However, they have changed their mind about it, and when it came time for reauthorization in 2005, they said this:

VAWA is one of the most effective pieces of legislation enacted to end domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking. It has dramatically improved the law enforcement response to violence against women and has provided critical services necessary to support women and children in their struggle to overcome abusive situations. Because VAWA remains an essential tool for combating domestic violence, it is important for Congress to continue the programs established under VAWA 1994 and build on the success of the law.

You can read their entire letter to the Senate Judiciary here.

2. Part of the 1994 bill was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2000 (U.S. v. Morrison, 5-4 decision, the usual suspects plus O'Connor and Kennedy). The struck portion had nothing to do with rape-kit costs. The majority ruled against the provision allowing federal civil suits to be brought against gender-motivated violent attackers by their victims. They kicked the civil-suit jurisdiction back to the states.

There are a lot of times where we complain about the press not doing its job well, fairly, evenhandedly, etc. Media Matters is out there every day documenting the rightward outrages of press coverage. But saying that the media should remind the public that John McCain said "lipstick on a pig" too is, frankly, not all that much better than the original story itself. Every day, every chance you journalists out there get, hammer on this question. Do Sarah Palin and John McCain get behind Joe Biden's policy of protecting women from sexual assault, or do they continue to oppose it.

If we had a functioning press, the BYO-rape-kit story would be plastered all over every tv and newspaper in the country.  At the very least, it would get about a thousand times more coverage than the lipstick-on-a-pig pseudo-story.

For those who haven't heard the whole story:

1.  Wasilla, AK, during Palin's term as mayor, had a policy whereby police would charge sexual assault victims for the cost of rape kits.  That's right, the police under Palin's command charged violent crime victims for gathering evidence on the their behalf.  Can you imagine charging murder victims' families for taking fingerprints, running balistics, etc.  That's not a police department, that's a protection racket. 

2.  The Alaska state legislature, specifically in order to stop Wasilla from continuing this practice, passed a law preventing police departments from charging sexual assault victims for rape kits.

3.  Abject horror was not the Alaska legislature's only motive in passing the law.  They also wanted the state to be eligible for federal funding under the 1994 Violence Against Women Act, which carried the condition that neither state nor municipal law enforcement charged sexual assault victims for rape kits.  Wasilla police policy was a barrier to that funding.

4.  The provision of the VAWA conditioning funding on this prohibition was pushed through congress by none other than...wait for it...Democractic VP candidate Joe Biden.

5.  The provision was opposed by none other than...wait for it...Republican Presidential candidate John McCain.

So, we have three actors.  One wrote the protection for women.  One opposed the protection for women.  One had to be forced by her state legislature to comply with the protection for women.  Both actors on the wrong side of protecting women against sexual assault are on the Republican ticket.  The actor on the right side is on the Democratic ticket.

This is a very simple part of our democratic process.  Politicians, among other things, make policy.  Some politicians oppose that policy.  Some violate that policy.  If we like the policy, we need to elect politicians that will make it happen, and defeat those politicians that oppose and/or violate it.  Now, lots of policies are difficult to assess.  A lot of times, we only know what we want the outcome to be, and we fight over how to achieve it.  Occasionally, issues are sufficiently simple that the general public can tell both what's right and how to get there.  Lifting the financial burden of collecting evidence off of back of rape victims is one of these issues.

A lot of conservatives seem to hate VAWA (big surprise).  They will likely bring up two things.

1.  Conservatives will say that even the ACLU opposed the Violence Against Women Act.  This was true, at first.  However, they have changed their mind about it, and when it came time for reauthorization in 2005, they said this:

VAWA is one of the most effective pieces of legislation enacted to end domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking. It has dramatically improved the law enforcement response to violence against women and has provided critical services necessary to support women and children in their struggle to overcome abusive situations. Because VAWA remains an essential tool for combating domestic violence, it is important for Congress to continue the programs established under VAWA 1994 and build on the success of the law.

You can read their entire letter to the Senate Judiciary here.

2.  Part of the 1994 bill was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2000 (U.S. v. Morrison, 5-4 decision, the usual suspects plus O'Connor and Kennedy).  The struck portion had nothing to do with rape-kit costs.  The majority ruled against the provision allowing federal civil suits to be brought against gender-motivated violent attackers by their victims.  They kicked the civil-suit jurisdiction back to the states.

There are a lot of times where we complain about the press not doing its job well, fairly, evenhandedly, etc.  Media Matters is out there every day documenting the rightward outrages of press coverage.  But saying that the media should remind the public that John McCain said "lipstick on a pig" too is, frankly, not all that much better than the original story itself.  Every day, every chance you journalists out there get, hammer on this question.  Do Sarah Palin and John McCain get behind Joe Biden's policy of protecting women from sexual assault, or do they continue to oppose it.

Academic Economists like to point out that the real puzzle of political participation is not why so many people don't vote, but why so many people do.  Using a straightforward cost-benefit analysis, these scholars note that the benefit of voting cannot overcome the costs.  The benefit of voting is represented as the probability of casting the deciding vote in favor of one's preferred candidate multiplied by the value of that candidate's victory.  The cost of voting consists of taking time off work, transportation to the polls, time spent waiting in line, etc.  Those costs are typically treated fixed.  Opinions differ on where information comes into play.  Some models treat it as a fixed cost, others treat it as an influence on the certainty the voter has over her candidate preferences.  In either case, gathering information is costly, and at best reduces uncertainty about preferences, the value of which are reduced by the minuscule probability of casting the deciding vote.  In all, these economists project a negative overall utility (benefits minus costs) leading them to conclude that voting is irrational.

Sociologists and Political Scientists respond in various ways.  The most common counter-arguments take note of the fact that there are fixed benefits associated with voting: satisfying a sense of civic duty, being part of a community, etc., often characterized as "expressive" or "solidary" benefits, as opposed to the "instrumental" benefits of casting the deciding vote.

What I've come to see in the Republican issue strategy is a really quite frightening.  They hit upon a simple (but incorrect) solution that dovetails with their ideology and constituency, and flog it mercilessly despite the fact that it has no merit whatsoever.  Thus we get "drill baby drill" and "the problem with Freddie and Fannie is that they got too big for the taxpayers to continue supporting." 

This does two things in the voting model.  First, it increases the perceived amount of information (nothing in the model says the information must be correct).  This either reduces costs or increases certainty over preferences.  This in turn increases participation among those who are aligned ideologues or constituents.  Second, it increases the solidary and expressive benefits of those choosing the Republican ticket.  Satisfying the civic duty, for example, presumes that the voter is making a responsible choice.  Voters understand that vote choice should be a matter of policy preferences, not personality.  Thus, any candidate that can make the voter feel better informed can align the candidate preference part of the model with the expressive benefits component.  It increases the fixed benefit, but only if the voter chooses the ticket that provides the simple (albeit incorrect) policy proposal.  In the end, it makes increased turnout contingent upon selecting a particulary candidate.

All this is to say that any candidate who can make solutions seem simple (if not to implement, at least to understand) can do himself an enormous favor.  It's a boon to the common good and the future success of the candidate's career if those solutions turn out to be correct, but being correct doesn't help much in the election.  The goal is to make the voters feel smarter about public policy than they were the day before.  It's not just a matter of ego, or resentment, or all the other buttons that get pushed with charges of "elitism."  It taps into the urge to satisfy one's civic duty.  It's the difference between saying, "I'm going to vote for him because he understands the problem," and "I'm going to vote for him because I understand the problem, and his understanding of the problem makes sense to me."

For the life of me, I can't relate to the raw emotional response the Republican's have shown for the mantra, "Drill Baby Drill."  It's not a particular arousing policy stance (unless you consider its phallic imagery).  Despicable as it is, the urge to go to war understandable stirs up silt from some muddy corner of the id.  "Values" issues allows them to expel some latent sexual guilt while simultaneously feeling superior.  But oil exploration?  Maybe it requires staring at old films of wells spouting forth that lead straight back to the phallic business.  But that's not the contemporary image of oil wells, especially off-shore platforms.  They're bare-bones industrial fare these days, covered in dust, rust, and grease that would put to shame a fry-cook in a world without health codes. 

What I think is really happening is that their party has simply hit upon its favorite kind of winning issue: one without any merit.  It's their crack cocaine, and it just gives them a blistering buzz.