Mid-Term Musings

I don't typically like to comment on political races until I have had a chance to take a in-depth look at the detailed election results and exit polls. After all, I am a data guy. I look for answers and insights in the data to try to put everything in context.

However, I know there is a lot of interest from my readers on my thoughts on the mid-term election results so I will share a few musings about the mid-terms based on what I watched last night on the cable tv channels and the limited data I have reviewed so far.

Senate Races

The Senate races pretty much followed the themes that I laid out in my blog post, "Sensing the Senate Races-2014" that I published on the eve of the election.

I profiled 13 states where I thought the Republicans had a path to majority control. They appear to have won 11 of the 13 with Louisiana still likely to be added to their majority in the December run-off. The only state on my list of the first tier list of targets that they were not able to win was New Hampshire. However, I had assessed a win in New Hampshire to involve very long odds.

I had Virginia as a secondary target based on the polls in the state, however, I was on right on target when I stated, "when I look at the 4 point Obama margin ( in 2012) and the fact that minority and young voters will not likely turn out like they did two years ago, it seems Gillespie could make this a race in the end." He certainly did.

Governor Races

This was the most under-reported story of the night as the networks were so focused on the Senate races. It is almost hard to believe that the Republicans won gubernatorial races in red states like Illinois, Massachusetts and Maryland.  Consider the Obama margins in these three states in 2012---Illinois +17, Massachusetts +23, Maryland +26.

In addition, Republicans won these other states which are all blue or swing states---Maine, Michigan, Wisconsin, Florida, Ohio and only lost in deep blue Connecticut by 3 points and Rhode Island by 4 points.

All in all, Democrats now hold only 18 out of 50 governor offices. To put that in perspective, there are now more states where gay marriage is legal than there are Democrat governors!

Wave or Not?

I try never to get caught up with the emotion and hype in the aftermath of elections. We are hearing this election called a wave but we heard similar descriptions when the Democrats won in 2008 and 2012. Or the GOP in 2010.

In the aftermath of the 2012 election there were many political commentators who were flooding the
flooding the airwaves with opinions that the Republican Party had to fundamentally overhaul their positions on the issues to be successful in the future.  They argue that there had been a fundamental seismic shift in the voting demographics that is younger, less White and more liberal.

I disagreed and this is what I wrote three days after the 2012 election after reviewing the exit poll data on that election.

There clearly was a solid group of voters who would vote for Barack Obama.  That was proven in 2008 and 2012.  It is just not clear to me that this voting bloc is sustainable or repeatable.  Obama is not going to be on the ballot again.  The symbol will be gone and all that will be left is the substance of the Democrat positions that are not exactly wildly popular.  Republicans should take heart and not be too quick to alter their core positions.  This comes through in the exit polling for 2012 even considering the demographic advantage that the Democrats had in voters this year.

I have not analyzed any exit polls in detail this year but I suspect that Democrats lost big in this election cycle primarily because black voters did not turn out as they did in 2008 and 2012 for Obama and young voters stayed home having lost their love affair with Obama.

I did look at some limited exit poll data on North Carolina which seems to confirm my thoughts. Black voters made up about 28% of the total vote in 2012. This year they made up 21%.  That is a 7% swing of voters who voted for Hagan 96% of the time. That is the election right there. Tillis won by 2%.

During the campaign, President Obama made a hand scratching statement to a rally of supporters in Maryland when he said, "You've got to get that cousin Pookie sitting at home on the couch" to get out and vote. Guess what? Cousin Pookie never got off the couch. There is now a GOP Governor in a state that Obama won by 26 points two years ago.

The bigger question is why do the Democrats have a problem in turning out voters in non-Presidential years?

Mercenaries and Patriots

Democrats seems to have a problem turning out voters in mid-term elections because, first of all, they have more low interest voters than Republicans. Poll after poll shows that they don't pay as much attention and are less informed as a general rule than are Republican voters.

They seem to only get engaged in Presidential years when it is hard to ignore politics and and you can't go anywhere without hearing about it.

It also seems to be the case that many Democrat voters are engaged primarily by what the political process means to them personally. It is mostly about what the government does for them in dollars and cents. In that respect they are very similar to mercenaries in an army. The party's voters are primarily composed of special interest blocks of voters who depend on government. They are primarily interested in furthering their individual interest through government.

I think this is the fundamental flaw in the Democrat party model right now. They can only expand their numbers by recruiting more mercenaries to their army. Whether it is expanding government benefits, opening the border to future voters or providing government special subsidies to  "the right" businesses, their base largely is dependent on government.

Republicans, on the other hand, are more interested in what government does generally as well as what government could do to them. Republicans don't vote as mercenaries to serve their own interests, but for the interests of the country. Therefore, Republicans can more generally be counted on to go to the polls year in and year out and the numbers seem to bear that out.

Over the years many countries who have relied on mercenary armies have learned that they are inherently unreliable. I don't think it is any different in politics. People motivated by beliefs will beat people motivated by bucks in the end.

This is why the Democrats had such a hard time understanding the Tea Party movement when it started out of nowhere. They just could not understand how so many people could get so ginned up when they weren't getting anything out of it individually. It was totally foreign to the way they understood the psychology of voters. Remember when Nancy Pelosi derided the grassroots Tea Party and called them "astroturf"? She thought it was fake because she just could not believe that people would show up without getting paid to do it.

Interesting Insights

• Democrats and the mainstream media like to refer to "racist" and "anti-immigration" Republicans but has anyone looked at the election results in South Carolina? Tim Scott, the black Senator who had been appointed by Governor Nikki Haley last year, and was running for the remainder of the full term, got 85% of the votes of white men in the election. He only got 16% of the vote of black men!  By the way, Scott also got almost 100,000 more votes than white Senator Lindsay Graham who was running for re-election. Nikki Haley (the daughter of Indian immigrants) was re-elected 56%-41%. 
• Speaker John Boehner lives near me and was re-elected in the 8th Congressional District of Ohio.  However, I found it interesting that Boehner only captured 65% of the vote in his home county.  That is about 7 points below what John Kasich drew in the county. Boehner also had a lower percentage vote than all the other state officeholders on the ballot. The last few years have definitely taken a toll of Boehner's popularity with the hometown folks.
• In Ohio, generally all local tax increases have to go before a vote if it means the property tax millage will go up. This includes school, police, fire and other issues. Starting in the late 1970's these issues started to have increased difficulty in passing. People started to get fed up with high taxes. This has been a continuing theme for the last several decades. What I found interesting in looking at the results of Tuesday's election in Hamilton County (my home) was that most tax levy issues passed with rather comfortable margins. This included a 1/4 cent increase in the local sales tax in the country to pay for repairs and refurbishment of Cincinnati's Union Terminal, the iconic art-deco railroad terminal built in the 1930's, which is now  a museum center. In fact, the vote wasn't even close with a 65%-35% margin despite the fact that household budgets are being squeezed by the economy.  I think this is a potentially interesting development.  Does it signal increased interest in government actually doing the things government is supposed to do and a willingness to support these efforts? We will see.
• The margin of the Cory Gardner win in Colorado was surprising to me coming in a state that voted for Obama twice and which also just two years ago passed the most liberal pot laws in the country. That win seems to have been driven by Gardner's ability to win the suburbs of Denver that Obama had won in the previous elections. It appears that a number of Obama's "soccer moms" have become "security moms".  For example, by a 63%-25% margin, Colorado voters were in favor of U.S. military action against ISIS.  At the same time, 61% thought abortion should be always legal (28%) or mostly legal (33%). In the end, Gardner won married women by 49%-47%. Does this indicate that one's head is more valuable than one's uterus? It appears so.

More on the mid-terms later when I have more time to analyze the results in detail.

Sensing The Senate Races-2014

The mid-term elections are tomorrow and I thought I would pull out my smeared and smudged crystal ball and see what I see developing in the U.S. Senate election races across the country.

The current make-up of the Senate is 55 Democrats (2 are "Independents" who caucus with the Democrats) and 45 Republicans.  Therefore, the Republicans need to pick up six seats overall to assume majority control.

My evaluation of the races in each state are based on several factors: Obama's vote total in the 2012 elections, the extent to which reduced black voter turnout could harm the Democrat candidate this year compared to Obama's vote totals in each state in 2012, the individual appeal of the Senate candidate and recent polling data I have reviewed.

There are 35 Senate seats up for re-election. 34 are regular elections and one is a special election--the South Carolina seat of former Senator Jim DeMint who resigned in early 2103 and was replaced by Tim Scott who was appointed by Governor Nikki Haley. Scott is running for the remaining two years of DeMint's term while Lindsay Graham is also seeking re-election to a full six year term as South Carolina's senior Senator.

RealClearPolitics.com suggests that 42 Republicans seats are either not up for re-election or are considered safe in 2014. On the other hand, only 38 Democrats seats are considered safe by Real Clear Politics heading into the election tomorrow.

Therefore, control of the Senate rests on 20 seats and the Republicans merely have to split those seats to take 52-48 majority control (or nine of the twenty to get to 51-49). Where do I see the best chances for the pick-up of those 9 or 10 seats?

Here are my thoughts based on the most probable to least probable Republican wins.  There are 13 states in which the Republicans have very good chances to pick up the 9 seats they need. I doubt they win all of these. However, 10 of the 13 races ending up in the Republican column seems reasonable although we might not see that number until after the run-offs in December.

West Virginia
Shelly Moore Capito looks to be a lock in the Mountaineer state. Obama only got 36% of the vote in West Virginia in 2012. He has to be even more unpopular today. Capito is +17 in the RCP poll average.

South Dakota
Another state where Obama did poorly with just 40% of the popular vote in 2012. Mike Rounds is +12 in the RCP poll average. Rounds would be polling better but for the fact that former Republican Senator Larry Pressler is on the ballot as an Independent and is most likely siphoning off some of Rounds' potential support.

Montana
Obama lost Montana by 14 points to Romney. Steve Daines is +18 in the RCP poll average.

Arkansas
Barack Obama only got 37% of the vote in Arkansas in 2012. The incumbent Democrat Senator Mark Pryor has a big political name in the state, has two terms under his belt but also too many votes siding with Obama. The GOP has 37 year old rising star Tom Cotton on the ballot. Cotton is +7 in the RCP poll average.

Kentucky
Another tough state for any Democrat supporting President Obama. Obama only received 38% of the 2012 vote of those in the Blue Grass state. It is no wonder that Democrat candidate Alison Grimes refused to admit she voted for Obama. McConnell is definitely vulnerable and he could have been taken out here with the right candidate. It just does not appear that Grimes is the person to do it after a series of campaign missteps.

Alaska
Alaska warmed up a little for Barack Obama between 2008 and 2012. He drew only 38% of the vote in 2008 and improved to 42% in 2012. Mark Begich is the incumbent Democrat facing off against Republican Dan Sullivan. Sullivan is +2 in the most recent RCP poll average. I don't know anything about Sullivan but it is hard to believe that any Republican could lose to a Democrat in Alaska (like Begich) who has voted voted with Obama 97% of the time.

Iowa
This is a state that should be an uphill fight for the GOP. Obama won Iowa by 10 points in 2008 and 6 points in 2012. However, it is an open seat which makes the task at little easier compared to other states like Colorado, New Hampshire and Virginia which favored Obama by similar margins two years ago and have incumbents on the ballot. Joni Ernst, the GOP candidate, seems to have run a very good campaign. The Democrat, Bruce Braley, has been less sure-footed with several gaffes involving farmers in a state with 90,000 farmers. Ernst is +1.4 in the RCP poll average that shows just how hard it is to turn a blue state to red even when you have the better candidate.

Louisiana
Obama was -18 to Romney in 2012. The Landrieu name is famous in the state but Mary Landrieu has also voted with Obama 97% of the time. She got 52% of the vote in 2008 but that came with Blacks making up 29% of the total vote and favoring her 96-2 over the GOP challenger. It appears that Landrieu can only win if there is a Black turnout similar to 2008 and 2012. She lost the white vote 2-1 the last time around. This election will likely be decided in a run-off in early December as there are two GOP candidates that are splitting the opposition votes. Landrieu is only averaging about 40% support in the RCP poll average.

Georgia
Georgia supported Romney + 7 in 2012. However, this is an open seat with the retirement of Saxby Chambliss that has provided an opportunity for the Democrats for a pick up. Michelle Nunn (daughter of the popular ex-Senator Sam Nunn) is the Democrat nominee. David Perdue, a businessman who is running for his first political office is the GOP standard bearer. Turnout of black voters will again be the key to this race and Nunn probably needs African-American turnout to be over 30% to win. A Libertarian candidate is polling around 3% which might also push this race to a run-off as Georgia law requires the winner to have more than 50% of the popular vote.

North Carolina 
North Carolina was the only state that supported Obama in 2008 that did not return the favor in 2012. Romney won by 2 points after Obama squeaked by McCain by .4 points in 2008. The Democrat, Kay Hagan, is the incumbent which provides her an advantage over Thom Tillis. The race is complicated by a Libertarian who is polling at around 5%. The Black vote will again be critical as Hagan won this demographic 96-1 in 2008. She has voted with Obama 97% of the time.

Update as of 6am 11/4/14-I just saw the numbers related to early voting in NC and it makes me more optimistic for Tillis. Jay Cost of The National Review states that 52% of early votes have been voters age 65+. In 2012 this number was only 36%. Young voters age 18-29 made up 13% of early voters in 2012, only 5% in 2014. In addition, white voters are up and black voters are down in the early numbers. Read my earlier blog post, Turned On and Turned Out to see why these numbers could be important to Tillis if these voting trends continue with the total vote.

Kansas
Kansas is the state where voters undoubtedly wish there was someone else on the ballot. The Democrat nominee, Chad Taylor, withdrew as a candidate to provide the "Independent" a better chance of unseating 5-term Senator Pat Roberts. Kansas has not elected a Democrat Senator since FDR's years. Kansas voters are left with the option of voting for an over-the-hill Roberts or a fake Democrat (Greg Orman) in a state in which only 38% supported Obama in 2012. Anything can happen here. This should be a sure GOP win. However, now you can see why I have this race so far down the list. Roberts only wins if voters use the vote to send a message to Obama and Harry Reid. If Orman wins it will be the third state that has an "Independent" as a Senator--the most in the history of our republic. Interestingly, the positions of these "independents" on the issues are anything but independent. All are Democrats in substance. It is just easier to get elected without the liberal Democrat label. We will see if that trick works on Kansas voters.

Colorado
Most of the pollsters and political pundits have been pointing to this as a GOP pick-up with Cory Gardner beating incumbent Democrat Mark Udall. I have my reservations. First, it is always harder to beat an incumbent. Second, Colorado was +5 for Obama in 2012. Third, are the same voters who legalized pot two years ago going to vote for a Republican? I don't think so. Gardner only wins if the voters who voted for Obama and pot in 2012 don't bother to vote in 2014.

New Hampshire
Obama won NH by 6 points two years ago. The incumbent Democrat, Jeanne Shaheen, is a former popular Governor who appears to be in trouble in this race. Scott Brown, who won election to succeed Ted Kennedy in Massachusetts, on a wave of anger about Obamacare in early 2010 (only to lose to Elizabeth Warren in 2012) is taking Shaheen on having established his legal residence in the state. This is one of the key races of the night as if Brown can unseat Shaheen it will send reverberations that will be felt very quickly across the country. Brown has made immigration a big issue in his campaign so if he wins you can be sure that it will also carry the same warning bells to politicians in Washington on this issue as did his win in Massachusetts with Obamacare. Watch this one closely. Shaheen is only up +1 in the RCP poll average.

There are a few other states that might come into play for the Republicans if tomorrow night starts shaping up to be a wave election. I don't expect it but it is possible.  If so, these states are the next possibilities for Republican gains.

Virginia
Obama won Virginia by 4 points and a big part of his margin came out of the DC suburbs with support from young people and minorities in particular. The rest of the state tilts GOP. Again, turnout is key here.  Democrat Mark Warner has been a popular Governor and Senator so he is tough to take out. Ed Gillespie is the GOP challenger and the RCP average has him -10. However, when I look at the 4 point Obama margin and the fact that minority and young voters will not likely turn out like they did two years ago, it seems Gillespie could make this a race in the end.

Minnesota
I still have a hard time even uttering the words Senator Al Franken. I often have a hard time understanding what is going through the minds of Minnesotans. How could any state elect both Jesse Ventura and Al Franken? Minnesota went +9 for Obama in 2012 so this is an uphill battle for the GOP as Franken has lots of money and challenger Mike McFadden is a political novice in his first bid for public office after a successful business career.

New Mexico
Another state that went +10 for Obama in 2012. Tom Udall is the incumbent Democrat Senator and being challenged by another successful businessman (Allen Weh) who has not held elected office before. Weh might be helped by Susana Martinez, the popular GOP Governor, who is running for reelection and is up by 13 pts in the RCP average. There has not been a lot of good polling in the Senate race and RCP does not have a polling average on the Senate race. How long are the coattails of Martinez?

There does not appear to be much other opportunity for Republican pick-ups in other states. Michigan and Oregon looked like possibilities earlier in the year but the GOP candidates in those states failed to gain any momentum or money.

An interesting newcomer to keep your eye on is the likely new Republican Senator from Nebraska, Ben Sasse. Sasse is +23 in the RCP poll average so he looks like he is on his way to Washington.
Sasse is age 42 and has a B.A. from Harvard and a Ph.D from Yale and most recently was the President of a small university in Nebraska (Midland University) in the town he as raised in.

This is how Real Clear Politics sees the Battle for the Senate on the eve of the election. 8 toss ups! Many of these races will be determined solely by who shows up and votes. And by those that think they have something better to do and don't vote.

Make sure you vote!

The Power of Potential

Why does a untested high school pitcher command a bigger signing bonus from a major league baseball team than a proven major league pitcher with six years of experience as a starter?

Why does a fledgling tech company IPO result in a market cap far in excess of a steady and profitable company that has a 10 year record of success in the marketplace?

Why does the up and coming young MBA a few years out of school get the promotion over the steady, seasoned and loyal 10 year manager?

Why do NFL fans of mediocre teams always clamor for the 2nd string quarterback?

Why did an untested Barack Obama beat two candidates (Hillary Clinton and John McCain) who were both more accomplished and experience than he was?

All of this stems from the human tendency to favor potential over achievement. In effect, "the potential to be good at something is preferred over actually being good at the very same thing."

Those are the words of Zakary Tormala who is an Associate Professor at Stanford's Graduate School of Business. I recently saw Tormala speak at a conference on this subject and I thought his research into this subject was interesting and enlightening.

Tormala has an academic interest in psychological certainty (and uncertainty) and its effects on our behavior and decision making.  For example, if someone is certain in their beliefs it is very difficult to get them to change their mind to consider new choices. On the other hand, people who are uncertain are much more willing to have an open mind and consider new options.

What are the implications of this in the real world?

It is critical that people in sales and marketing understand the role of uncertainty. Someone who is certain is going to be impossible to sell under almost any circumstances. The only way to get them to consider your product is to introduce some uncertainty (for example, a new insight or threat that they might not have been aware of) to get them to open their mind for other options or choices.

What is interesting in comparing potential versus achievement is that uncertainty seems to have the opposite affect you would expect according to research that Tormala conducted with two other collaborators that was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Evidence of achievement should reduce uncertainty about a person’s talent and boost confidence about his or her future success or high performance. Potential, on the other hand, is fraught with uncertainty by its very nature: An individual with high potential might achieve greatness but very well might not. Because potential leaves more room for doubt about a person’s true talent or future outcomes, it stands to reason that achievement should be viewed as more impressive than otherwise equivalent potential and should often be viewed as a stronger or more reliable indicator of future success.

However, that is not the case most of the time. Potential trumps achievement in people's minds a lot of the time.Although achievement provides certainty, the uncertainty of potential seems to be more engaging and interesting to people.

We postulate that potential is more interesting and engaging than achievement precisely because it is less certain and more ambiguous. Indeed, considerable research has revealed that relative to certainty, uncertainty can sometimes stimulate greater interest and involvement and, ultimately, deeper processing.

Thus, we suggest that the uncertainty surrounding individuals with high potential makes them more interesting, which draws people in, increases processing, and can have positive downstream effects on judgments. 

About now I am sure you are saying, "Enough with the academic speak!".

"What are you talking about in the real world?"

Here is a "real world" example based on one of the experiments that Tormala did to prove the power of potential.

The experimental study involved an ad campaign on Facebook involving a real comedian named Kevin Shea who was growing in popularity  at the time. Shea had just launched a fan page of Facebook so Tormala and his fellow researchers took out ads on Facebook to see how many clicks the could garner to Shea's Facebook page.

The only difference in the ads was a small change in wording of the header. One header touted achievement and the other emphasized potential.

They also measured two well-known persuasion strategies. The extent to which individuals were persuaded by experts (Source Credibility Appeal) and by others (Social Proof Appeal).

The "Expert" header in the ad read like this for Achievement.

Critics say he has become the next big thing.

The "Expert" header for Potential was this.

Critics say he could become the next big thing.

The "Social Proof" header in the ad read like this for Achievement.

Everyone is talking about Kevin Shea.

The "Social Proof" header for Potential was as follows.

By this time next year, everyone could be talking about Kevin Shea.


Therefore, it really was the case of "he has arrived" vs. "he could arrive".

What were the results?

It is pretty incredible if you ask me how powerful potential was compared to achievement.

When the source was stated to be experts (like critics) there were about 2x the number of clicks to find out about the potentially great comedian Kevin Shea than the Kevin Shea who was already great.

When the source was simply the opinion of others (non experts), there were almost no clicks unless it was about potential. There was almost no interest in clicking through to find about someone who everyone was already talking about.

Tormala may be correct that uncertainty is driving more interest in potential than achievement here.

However, I believe there is another big factor at play here that he is overlooking.

That factor is "Social Currency".

The fact is that human beings like "to be in the know".  They also like the feeling they get when they find out about something new. Why? So they can tell someone else to show how "smart" or "clued in" they are. After all, when it comes to all of us, it is mostly about us.

Don't you know that feeling yourself?

There is no fun in telling something to someone who already knows it. It is fun to tell somebody something new.

I think my thesis also explains the difference between when the source is an "expert" versus a "non-expert". If you think about it, most people would consider an expert to be "in the know" and "ahead of the curve" compared to non-experts. Therefore, people are more willing to consider the achievement frame from an expert than a non-expert because it is more likely they know something everybody does not. That is why there were more clicks on the achievement frame for source credibility but almost none for social proof appeal. "If everyone else is already talking about this guy why bother checking it out? Who am I going to tell so I will look like I am clued in."

I think there is another factor at play here as well. That is the fact that most human beings are naturally optimistic. Life is hard if you don't believe that tomorrow is going to be better than today. We have a natural tendency to believe in the next great thing. That is what drives people to get out of bed in the morning. Tomorrow will be better.

On the other hand, achievement has boundaries. You know the top and the bottom of the range of achievement. Potential is boundless, especially on the upside. Hope does spring eternal.

In conclusion, think about the power of potential. It has significant practical implications. Think about how you present things to others and how you state things when it comes to achievement versus potential. Small word choices can have large impacts on persuading others as Tormala points out in another article on this subject.

If you're recommending someone for a job, a promotion, or admission to graduate school, it would be wise to highlight that person's potential. Our take is that framing your support for a person, a restaurant, a cause — and many other things — in terms of potential as opposed to achievement could make your case more persuasive.

We found that even seemingly minor word choices made a difference. Participants in one study evaluated a job applicant more favorably when he had performed well on a test called the "Assessment of Leadership Potential" rather than one called the "Assessment of Leadership Achievement." So someone who scores well on a Scholastic Aptitude Test might be perceived as a stronger candidate than someone who scores well on a Scholastic Achievement Test. A subtle shift in word choice can have a big impact on interest and engagement.

Potentially great advice, don't you agree?

Questions on Quarantines

The case of nurse Kaci Hickox and her enforced quarantine in Newark, New Jersey pushed me to do a little research on the background and basis for a quarantine order.

It also seems useful to compare and contrast the difference between quarantining someone and isolating someone.

This is exactly how the Center for Disease Control (CDC) defines the two terms.

Isolation and quarantine help protect the public by preventing exposure to people who have or may have a contagious disease.

• Isolation separates sick people with a contagious disease from people who are not sick.

• Quarantine separates and restricts the movement of people who were exposed to a contagious disease to see if they become sick.

In addition to serving as medical functions, isolation and quarantine also are “police power” functions, derived from the right of the state to take action affecting individuals for the benefit of society.

Ms. Hickox created a lot of noise in the news about having been quarantined in New Jersey upon her arrival from Sierra Leone after treating Ebola patients in that country for a month with Doctors Without Borders.

This is what she said in an interview with Candy Crowley on CNN.

"To quarantine everyone, in case, you know, when you cannot predict who may develop Ebola or not, and to make me stay for 21 days, to not be with my family, to put me through this emotional and physical stress, is completely unacceptable," Hickox told Crowley. She added, "I feel like my basic human rights have been violated. It's really inhumane".

Hickox was ultimately released by New Jersey and sent to her home state of Maine. However, the Governor of Maine, Paul LePage, has stated that she will be expected to self-quarantine herself in Maine. And the nursing school (University of Maine-Fort Kent) which her live-in boyfriend attends has stated he will not be allowed on campus if he has any contact with Hickox. Faced with that choice, he has decided to not attend school during the quarantine period.

It seems that Ms. Hickox is not any more welcome to move around freely in her home state of Maine than in New Jersey.

First, it should be duly noted that sincere thanks and appreciation should go out to Ms. Hickox, Dr. Spencer, Dr. Brantley and the other medical professionals who have given so much in the effort to serve those in the Ebola-infected countries of West Africa. It is a true lesson of humanity and sacrifice in a world where both seem to be in very short supply.

However, what sense would it make to undo all of that good by not following some common sense protocols that have proven to be prudent through the course of many, many years of human activity. Does it not make sense "to be safe rather than sorry" with a disease that could particularly devastate urban communities and a 21st century economy that is so inter-connected?

I appreciate your service, Ms .Hickox, but the weight of public opinion and prudent thought is not on your side.

I find it troubling that as a medical professional Ms. Hickox also does not seem to understand that the very reason for a quarantine is because (using her words) "you cannot predict who may develop Ebola or not". This is the very purpose of a quarantine. You quarantine "to see if they become sick". You isolate those that are sick.

That being said, it is also clear that New Jersey seems like it could have done a better job of handling her quarantine. More on that below.

In addition, consider this poll that was taken among NBC's Today Show viewers that was reported on the show yesterday. Bear in mind that NBC Today Show viewers would not typically be considered Tea Party members.

Who were the 6%?

That leads me to provide a little background and history on the history and reason behind a quarantine.

This also comes from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) website.

The practice of quarantine, as we know it, began during the 14th century in an effort to protect coastal cities from plague epidemics. Ships arriving in Venice from infected ports were required to sit at anchor for 40 days before landing. This practice, called quarantine, was derived from the Italian words quaranta giorni which mean 40 days.

Notice that the concern here was the risk of bringing plague into Venice and other coastal cities from ships arriving from infected ports. No one was let off the ship who had been somewhere where the infection was rampant until the incubation period had passed. That is the purpose of a quarantine.
You do not quarantine someone who is symptomatic as by that time it is already too late. At that point the protocol is to isolate the sick from those who are not sick.

They figured this out in the Middle Ages when the risk of transmission was relatively small compared to the risks we have today with air travel and a much more mobile world population. Why do we think we can ignore common sense today?

In the early days of our nation most quarantine efforts were handled by state and local governments, but eventually it was acknowledged that the federal government was in a better position to oversee these efforts as the country became more mobile and transient.

The Public Health Service Act of 1944 clearly established the federal government's quarantine authority for the first time. The act gave the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) responsibility for preventing the introduction, transmission, and spread of communicable diseases from foreign countries into the United States.

There is authority under that statute "to detain, medically examine or conditionally release individuals and wildlife suspected of carrying a communicable disease."

The list of quarantinable diseases is contained in an Executive Order of the President and includes cholera, diphtheria, infectious tuberculosis, plague, smallpox, yellow fever, viral hemorrhagic fevers (such as Marburg, Ebola, and Congo-Crimean), and severe acute respiratory syndromes.(emphasis added).

Other diseases are considered to pose a health risk to the public but are not considered subject to quarantine under current law.

Many other illnesses of public health significance, such as measles, mumps, rubella, and chicken pox, are not contained in the list of quarantinable illnesses, but continue to pose a health risk to the public.

What is most interesting here again with the Ebola issue is that it is the President of the United States Barack Obama who is not exercising any leadership or the prudent use of his clear executive authority. As a result, Governors in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and Illinois have announced mandatory 21-day quarantine periods for any health workers returning from West Africa where the federal government has done nothing. Bear in mind, three of these states are led by liberal, Democrat governors.

We are left with the strange fact that the President of the United States will not act when he has the clear legal authority to do so, and it is necessary (Ebola), but he wants to act when he has absolutely no legal authority (Amnesty for illegal immigrants). That is why I have previously referred to him as President Opposite.  It just seems that he has us going in the wrong direction with every step he takes.

Of course, the President argues that to place a 21-day quarantine period on any returning medical worker from West Africa would discourage health care workers like Ms. Hickox and Dr. Spencer from volunteering to help with Ebola treatment in Africa. As a result, the problem will only get worse and put us at greater risk over the long term.

I understand the argument but doesn't that present us with a false choice?

Mickey Kaus suggests that we need to think about the incentives in this case before we say we can't both protect the public today and also provide the needed medical resources to West Africa. I have written before that incentives make the world work. People at first thought Kaus was kidding when he suggested building a luxury resort for returning health care workers but he states he is dead serious. I must say I like his thinking in looking at the problem.

We’d like to quarantine care workers who return from caring for Ebola patients in West Africa — we’re not 100% sure that symptomless people aren’t contagious (“unlikely”), and symptoms seem to come on relatively quickly in any case. Voluntary quarantining has proven incompletely effective. At the same time, we don’t want to discourage volunteer health care workers from traveling to West Africa, where the main fight against the disease is being waged. They’re not exactly encouraged to make the trip if they know they’ll have to spend 21 days in a tent with a portable toilet on their return.

What to do? Protect the public here or incentivize workers to go there? This is a false choice! What’s needed is a quarantine so luxurious that health care workers will look forward to their 21 day quarantine, or at least not dread it. What if the federal government took over an isolated resort, say on the Gulf Coast. Stocked it with finest foods and wines in the land, and the best films and recreation and wireless Internet access and volunteer musical acts —  a French widow in every room, as a friend of mine used to say, equivalent to a very expensive vacation, available for free to any returning volunteer. The only catch is they couldn’t leave for 21 days. (They could bring their spouses and partners, if they wanted –but then the spouses couldn’t leave either).

I would take Kaus' idea one step further. I would make the quarantine period a paid vacation compliments of the federal government.  I might also make that pay tax-free and throw in a round trip charter flight to West Africa for every health care volunteer to boot.

Too expensive?  No way. How much does it cost to treat one Ebola patient in the ICU at Bellevue Hospital? Take that and multiply it by 100 or 1,000. In fact, Bellevue Hospital has already had to move other patients out of its ICU to another hospital so it can free staff to take care of its one Ebola patient!

How much did we spend on President Obama's tour of Africa last year? As much as $100 million according to a story in The Washington Post last year.  A 21-day tax-free paid vacation for the necessary health care workers would be a pittance compared to that expenditure.

How much would it cost to do contact tracing and monitoring on everyone on a New York subway? I don't want to even guess at the manpower and money required.

How much damage to the economy would be done if even a few hundred Ebola cases popped up over the next several months across the country. Incalculable.

Quarantine, isolation and incentives. There is a place for all of them in taking on Ebola. All it takes is a little leadership, imagination and money. We might not have any of them but we can surely borrow something from someone. We can start by borrowing proven tactics from our forefathers on how to combat communicable diseases. It starts with Q.

It's Not Black And White

I have spent a lot of time during my career looking at opinion surveys. Employee opinion surveys. Conference surveys.  Market research studies.

One thing is always clear. You typically find consensus in the survey numbers but you never see unanimity in anything when human beings are involved. One person is going to love something and another is just as likely to hate it. There are just too many diverse views and perspectives among human beings.

For example, I recently spoke at a conference where there were ten speakers and the attendees were asked to rank the sessions from 1-10 on how interesting the talk was to them. My speech was ranked 2nd overall on the day. Most people ranked it highly giving it a very good consensus score. However, the distribution of the scores went from 1 to 10. Some people loved it but others didn't think it was worth anything to them.

The same is true in an advertising campaign that I am overseeing right now. Readership surveys in the magazines the ads are running in show that it generally is the highest-rated ad. However, looking at the verbatim comments in the survey it is clear that some people love the ad and some hate it. That is just the way of the world when dealing with human beings and their opinions. You just have to accept that everyone is not going to like everything. In fact, that diversity of opinion is what makes the world so interesting.

Considering that experience and perspective, I continue to find it mind boggling whenever I look at exit poll data regarding the votes of black voters. It is as if there is no other candidate than a Democrat on the ballot. I am not sure Putin or Castro ever received such overwhelming majorities of votes in any "election" they participated in.

It defies all logic that any one group of people could vote in such a monolithic manner when you look at the diversity of issues involving politics. Issues like abortion, national security, tax policy, immigration, foreign policy, jobs policy and the like.

You don't see it in any other demographic group so why do we see it with African-Americans?

I wrote about the demographic breakdowns in the 2012 Obama/Romney race recently here.

Blacks gave 97% of their vote to Barack Obama.

The best Romney could do was 86% with his fellow Mormons.

I can understand 86%. I don't fathom 97%.

This is especially the case when you look at some of the other demographic splits.

Men-Romney 52%, Obama 45%
Women-Obama 55%, Romney 44%
High School graduate- Obama 51%, Romney 48%
College graduate- Romney 51%, Obama 47%
<$50,000 income- Obama 60%, Romney 38%
>100,000 income- Romney 54%, Obama 44%

There are male and female African-Americans who are high school and college graduates, poor and rich. How is it that their vote is identified almost solely by race and not by other factors?

When you look at some of the vote numbers in detail from 2012 it gets even crazier.

Consider the total votes from several of the precincts in my home county of Hamilton County in Ohio.

Look at these votes from the inner city of Cincinnati.

Cincinnati Precinct 13A-  Obama 1,080 votes, Romney 5 votes
Cincinnati Precinct 15C-  Obama 703 votes, Romney 4 votes
Cincinnati Precinct 22C-  Obama 859 votes, Romney 8 votes
Cincinnati Precinct 24H-  Obama 336 votes, Romney 1 vote
Cincinnati Precinct 24I-  Obama 407 votes, Romney 2 votes
Cincinnati Precinct 26H-   Obama 455 votes, Romney 2 votes

In those 6 precincts Obama got 99.5% of the vote.

Compare that with the precincts in Indian Hill which is generally considered to be the bastion of wealthy, white, privileged Republicans in Cincinnati. In fact, the zip code that includes Indian Hill donated more money to Romney than any other in the entire state of Ohio.

What were the vote totals in Indian Hill between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney?

Indian Hill Precincts-  Romney 3,434, Obama 1,406

In those 6 precincts Romney got 71.0% of the vote.

I can understand 71.0%. I don't fathom 99.5%.

It is not just Obama either. Look at some of the vote results from 2008 with other Democrat Senate candidates who are now running for re-election.

In North Carolina, Kay Hagan won the black vote 96-1 with blacks making up 18% of the vote total. Hagan lost the white vote by 18 points.

In Louisiana, Mary Landrieu won the black vote 96-2 with blacks making up 29% of the vote total. Landrieu lost the white vote by nearly 2 to 1.

All of this would make sense if we saw the African-American community prospering and advancing due to Democrat policies. The Democrat Party would practically be out of business right now but for the Black votes they get. However, what are Blacks getting for those votes?

• The unemployment rate for Blacks is 11.0%, more than double that of Whites which was 5.1% as of September, 2014.
• The unemployment rate for Black teenagers is 30.9%
• Only 69% of Black students graduate from high school.
• 72% of Black children are born out of wedlock.
• 39.6% of Black children live in poverty which is almost twice as many as all other races.

All of this might also make sense if we had seen that Democrats were responsible for the most significant legislative advances for equal rights for African-Americans over the years. However, that is not the case either.

Consider these historical landmark pieces of legislation that were voted on by Congress over the years that were so important to the advancement of African-Americans.

The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which abolished slavery.
100% Republican Support, 23% Democratic Support

The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which gave citizenship to freed slaves
94% Republican Support, 0% Democratic Support

The 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which gave the right to vote for all
100% Republican Support, 0% Democratic Support

The 1964 Civil Rights Act
80% Republican Support, 64% Democratic Support

African-Americans lined up to vote after passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act
Credit:ABHMuseum.org

With African-Americans today, it seems that their vote for Democrats is as simple as black and white. It is cut and dried but you must ask why?

If you look at the facts, it's not black and white.

Will this ever change?

This is one issue that I will continue to look at with great interest in the future. Will Barack Obama be responsible for another generation of Black Democrat voters or will he be responsible for the end of a trend that has lasted almost 50 years?

UPDATE (10/27/14): Herman Cain asking the same questions of Black voters in his most recent column.

Poor Palestine

Lost in all the news yesterday involving the terrorist attack in Canada was another terror attack in Jerusalem that claimed the life of a 3 month old baby. That young child, Chaya Zissel Braun, was an American citizen who was in a stroller on a light rail station's platform when a car driven by a young man with ties to Hamas plowed into a crowd of people during rush hour.

Hamas praised the young man who killed the baby as a "hero".  The young terrorist was shot and killed by Israeli security forces as he attempted to flee the scene.

In a Facebook post translated by Palestinian Media Watch, Sultan Abu-Einen hailed "the heroic martyr, Abed El-Rahman Idriss al-Shaludi," and that the terrorist, whose surname has also been spelled "Shaludeh" in English, was released from an Israeli prison in December 2013 after serving a 16-month sentence for previous terror offenses.

                                                                                          -IsraelInternationalNews.com 

                                                             
It does make you wonder a little bit about Hamas, doesn't it?

I ran across something else interesting about Hamas involving a recent gathering they held in Cairo seeking support from international donors to help rebuild Gaza after the recent "war" with Israel.

It seems that the Palestinians was recently looking for other nations to give them $4 billion to "fix the damage caused by the Israelis during Operation Protective Edge."

How much did they receive?

How about $1.4 billion more than they asked for---a total of $5.4 billion.

The United States pledged $212 million.

Qatar pledged $1 billion. Saudi Arabia $500 million. United Arab Emirates $200 million. Germany $63 million. France $50 million.

What I really found interesting is that the United States has given close to $5 billion to the Palestinians since the mid-1990's along with untold billions from other nations.  Much of this has been funneled through the United Nations.

The obvious question is what have we gotten for that money other than terror tunnels and rocket launchers to attack Israel?

Let me also provide a little more context to that amount of aid that has been provided to the Palestinians.

After World War II the United States developed an initiative called the Marshall Plan to provide economic support to help rebuild the European economies that had been devastated in the war. The funds were used to rebuild war-torn regions, modernize industry and make Europe prosperous again.

$17 billion was provided to the Europeans over fours years beginning in 1948. That would be around $170 billion in today's dollars. If you are paying attention, the United States has just pledged more money to rebuild Gaza than we spent in total on the Marshall Plan!

If you look at the money we have given the Palestinians since the mid-1990's and compare it to the Marshall Plan, you really have to wonder where all the money is going? Timon Dias of the Gatestone Institute provides some additional context on that question.

The Palestinian people, according to a recent study by the Jerusalem Institute of Justice, have received per capita, adjusted for inflation, 25 times more aid than did Europeans to rebuild war-torn Western Europe under the Marshall plan after the Second World War. 

The Palestinians have received 25 times the money that was provided to rebuild Europe after World War II in per capita terms and they are complaining that Israel is standing in the way of their people's progress?

Of course, despite all of this aid over the years, the average Palestinian lives in a state of poverty. New roads aren't built. Utilities are lacking. Economic infrastructure is non-existent. Much of the money seems to go for the tools of terror, salaries for Hamas leadership and teaching the next generation of Palestinians to hate Israel and the Jews for their plight of poverty.

Dias quotes from a 2003 book by German sociologist on a fundamental problem in the West's aid to Palestine through the United Nations Relief Fund for Palestine. (UNRWA).

D]espite claiming that it wants to bring peace to the region, the West continues to make the population explosion in Gaza worse every year. By generously supporting UNRWA's budget, the West assists a rate of population increase that is 10 times higher than in its own countries. Much is being said about Iran waging a proxy war against Israel by supporting Hezbollah and Hamas. One may argue that by fueling Gaza's untenable population explosion, the West unintentionally finances a war-by-proxy against the Jews of Israel.

If we seriously want to avoid another generation of war in Gaza, we must have the courage to tell the Gazans that they will have to start looking after their children themselves, without UNRWA's help. This would force Palestinians to focus on building an economy instead of freeing them up to wage war. Of course, every baby lured into the world by our money up to now would still have our assistance.

In the end, it is all about incentives as I have written about before.  Human beings will do what is in their best interest. Period.

Incentives drive the world. If the incentives for people are properly aligned, you will get the result you want.  If the incentives are not properly aligned, you will get poor results.  Whenever you get a poor result it is likely that you will find that the underlying incentives were not aligned properly.

Therefore, despite spending 25X what was spent per capita to rebuild Europe's economy, the people of Palestine are still poor and their leaders still wage war. And it does not appear that anything will change with another $5 billion having just been deposited into Hamas' bank account.

How much will go to actually build something productive that will actually help the Palestinian people? I would bet on more rocket launchers rather than roads and more terror tunnels than transformers for the utility grid.

I could not say it better than Dias does.

If the entire Palestinian Authority leadership lives off an international welfare check that arrives only because the conflict still exists, there isn't much incentive for ending the conflict.

Amen to that. And amen to the memory of an innocent 3-month baby who knew nothing about hate but lost her life because of it.

Turned On And Turned Out

The mid-term elections are two weeks away. The major question is whether the Republicans will be able to gain majority control of the U.S. Senate. Many are also interested in whether the GOP can increase their seats in the U.S. House and protect the gains they have made in statehouses around the country the last few years.

Predicting political races in recent years is not so much understanding polling but figuring out who will actually show up at the polls. The electorate has become increasingly partisan and those partisans seem to be easily partitioned into demographic sub-groups that have voted predictably in past years. 

For example, young and black is most likely a Democrat vote. When you have old and white you can lay pretty good odds they are voting Republican. 

President Obama won in 2008 and 2012 because he turned out young voters and black voters. Obama got 66% of the 18-29 vote in 2009 and 60% in 2012. In fact, if voters just 30 years of age and over were considered, Romney would have won 50%-48%. McCain would have only lost by 1% in 2008.

Obama got 95% of the black vote in 2008 and 93% in 2012.

On the other hand, Mitt Romney got 59% of the white vote in 2012 and 56% of the age 65+ vote.

97.6% of single black women voted for Obama in 2012. 65% of married white men (and 62% of married white women) voted for Romney.

This graphic by Steven Sailer gives you a sense of how the partisanship was partitioned by groups in the 2012 Obama/Romney race.

In other words, if you are a single, black lesbian who rents you were likely to vote Democrat in 2012.

If you were a married, white Mormon who owned their own home, the Republicans could probably count on your vote.

Why is this worth revisiting two weeks before the 2014 election?

I believe it is relevant because the results of the election will most likely be determined by the turnout of those red and blue groups above.

History would suggest that the Republicans should have an advantage in this regard as older voters and white voters have traditionally been more reliable in turning out at the polls in mid-term elections than young voters and black voters.

Let's look at the age breakdown of the electorate in the three national elections (2008, 2010, 2012).

Voters age 45 and over made up 53% of the total in 2008 and 54% in 2012.  However, in 2010, (motivated by the Obamacare issue?), they made up 67% of all voters!

It is even more interesting to look at the total number of young voters (ages 18-29) compared to older voters (age 60+) for the last three elections. 30 million older voters showed up consistently at the polls in each of those three elections.  However, 24 million young voters came out in 2008 to help elect Obama, only 10 million showed up in 2010, and 23 million reappeared in 2012 to save Obama.

Why is this important?

As stated above, 60% of the 18-29 age group voted for Obama in 2012.  However, 56% of the age 60+ group voted for Romney. Therefore, Obama got 14.4 million votes (24 million x .60) from 18-29 year olds in 2012 and Romney totaled 16.8 million votes (30 million x .56) from those age 60+. The youth vote almost neutralized the heavier senior vote in 2012.

However, if only 10 million young voters show up at the polls (as they did in 2010) in two weeks to support Democrats, that will only be 6 million youth votes compared to 16.8 million votes for seniors in 2014 assuming senior age group continues to vote as they have in the last several national elections. That equals a 10 million GOP voter advantage that will be difficult for Democrat candidates to overcome.

The chart below shows the ebbs and flows in voter turnout by age group since 1964. Click on the graphic to see a larger version of the chart.

Credit: Powerline.com

The clear trend over the last fifty years is that there are more seniors voting than ever before (the primary reason is that there are many more age 65 and older Americans than ever) and fewer young people voting.

What stands out to me in the chart above is the significant volatility in voting patterns of young voters between mid-term and Presidential election years.  Only 45%-60% of young voters in a Presidential election year will typically bother to cast a ballot two years later. On the other hand, you can count on 85%-88% of those age 65 or older who voted in the Presidential election to be at the polls in the mid-terms.

Another way to look at it is that in 2010 there were 3 voters age 65 and over for every voter 18-24. In 2012, there were only 1.5 older voters to every younger voter.  The older voter advantage was cut in half in the Obama election of 2012.

Will we see a repeat of 2010 this year with younger voters staying home?

The other key demographic for Democrats in this elections are African-Americans.

Blacks made up 13% of the electorate in 2008 in supporting Obama. They made up only 10% of the vote total in 2010 and they came back in force with 13% of the voters in 2012 to defend Obama.

These may look like fairly small percentage changes but when applied to the total votes cast in each election it amounts to millions of votes.

For example, in 2008, 13% of the vote amounted to 17 million votes of which Obama got 95% of the total---over 16 million votes in his favor.

The 10% that African-Americans represented in the 2010 election amounted to only 9 million votes. This amounts to a loss of some 8 million votes for Obama's policies compared to Obama the candidate. That is a deep hole to dig out of in any election.

You don't have to look at much more than this demographic data and past voting patterns to realize that turnout will be everything in the coming election.

That is why you are going to see a massive push by the Democrats in the next two weeks to do everything they can to gin up support among Black voters.

Who can get their voters to the polls?

The Democrats certainly face the biggest challenge in this regard. Historical voting patterns are not on their side. The leader of their party is deeply unpopular. The mood of the voters is decidedly negative (64% of voters say the country is on the wrong track according to most recent poll data) which usually means the President's party is responsible to a higher degree. If you are a Democrat it is hard to get excited about much of anything right now.

On the other hand, the Republicans have not done a very good job of showing what the right track might look like and the GOP is not immensely popular for their work in Congress either.

What I am most interested in seeing is whether the Democrats can come close to replicating the get-out-the-vote effort they were successful in doing in 2012. I thought that there was no way they could come close to matching the turnout numbers for their key groups in 2012 as they did in 2008. They did it and that is what won the election for Obama.

In fact, as I was writing this blog I went back over many of my blog posts leading up to the 2012 election and I have to admit I still have a difficult time in reconciling the numbers in how the Obama campaign was able to get the turnout they did with Obama's four year record and the economy.

If the Democrats can do it again in 2014, after another two years under Obama that makes the first four years look like 'the good old days', I will be at a total loss to explain it. It just does not add up based on a review of historical patterns and practices.

In that event, there will be only be two reasonable conclusions and, quite frankly, are almost unthinkable to me...

1) The country has reached the critical tipping point and we have reached the point of no return. We have reached The Fourth Turning and walked right over the cliff.

2) There is some type of massive voter fraud occurring within the system.

In the past, I would have scoffed at the second conclusion but you have to wonder when you see two stories like this in one week.

Liberal activist caught on video stuffing hundreds of ballots

Chicago-area voting machine casts Republican candidate’s vote for Democratic foe

The only thing I know for sure right now is that we have a long two weeks ahead of us in political posturing and positioning from both sides.

That will culminate in a long election night filled with plenty of politicos and pundits from all sides.

Where it leaves us the next day will depend on which voters are turned on and which voters turn out.

May everyone choose wisely.

I don't like to think about the unthinkable.

The Working Wounded

The most recent federal government numbers indicate that there are 9.3 million unemployed workers in the United States.

That compares to 11.3 million unemployed workers just before President Obama took office. That's the good news.

However, there are 92.6 million working-age Americans not currently in the labor force.  These include students, stay-at-home parents, early retirees and those too discouraged to look for work. They do not get counted in the workforce numbers that are used to calculate the unemployment number.

In December, 2008 that number was 80.4 million. Therefore, in the last four years the number of Americans that are not in the workforce has increased by 12 million!

Here are the numbers of working-age Americans not currently working as of September 30 for the last seven years.

2008     79.8 million
2009     82.5 million
2010     84.4 million
2011      86.0 million
2012      88.8 million
2013      90.7 million
2014      92.6 million

To put this in perspective, about as many Americans have left the workforce since 2008 as we saw during the entire 25-year period from 1975-2000.

Here are the unemployment numbers for the same period.

2008       9.5 million
2009      15.0 million
2010       14.6 million
2011       13.9 million
2012       12.1 million
2013       11.2 million
2014         9.3 million

Therefore, compared to six years ago, the number of unemployed is 200,000 lower but the number of working-age Americans who are not working has increased by almost 13 million!

When you put the all the numbers together, we now have over 100 million working-age Americans who are not working.  And despite the improved unemployment rate, the number of those not working plus those officially considered unemployed has not fallen at all. In fact, it has stayed stubbornly right around 100 million over the last five years.

By contrast, there are about 146 million people working-78 million men and 68 million women.

Of the 146 million workers, over 27 million are working part-time.  This is about 3 million higher than the number of part-time workers before President Obama took office.

The labor participation rate (the number that are working compared to the assumed civilian labor force of people 16 years of age and over) has now dropped to 62.7.  This is the lowest percentage of people working since 1977.

The labor force participation for men was the lowest ever recorded at 69.1 in September, 2014.  In 1981 it was 77.0.  The labor participation rate for women in September, 2014 was 56.7.

I have written before that I am more concerned about the percentage of those employed than the percentage that are unemployed.  After all, there are bills to be paid in this country.  People need shelter, food, energy, medical care and other necessities.  The lower the percentage of those working, the greater the burden those working carry for everyone else.  It is a simple comparison of how many are in the wagon versus how many are pulling the wagon.

Look no further than the numbers below to see what I mean as to the numbers receiving various federal and state benefits.

Social Security beneficiaries                      47.4 million
Social Security disability                            14.3 million
Unemployment benefits                               2.4 million
Food Stamps                                                 46.5 million

In addition, there are 21.9 million Federal and state government employees that the taxpayers of this country support through various federal and state taxes.

It used to be that people voted their pocketbooks. I don't think that has changed.  However, it is getting increasingly difficult to discern which pocketbook we are talking about anymore. The pocketbook of the working taxpayer who is paying the bills or the pocketbook of the recipients of government's largesse using other people's money?

The one thing that is clear is that those working and those that want to work in this economy have been wounded by the the policies of the last few years. There are too many people who are either unemployed or underemployed. There are also an increasing number of people that are not working that have to be taken care of but those that are working through an increased tax and debt burden.

The numbers above tell the story. We are in the decade of the working wounded.

Ebola Ruminations

A few ruminations and observations about Ebola as I have seen the news develop over the last few weeks.

The Math

I appreciate and respect the compounding effects of mathematics. This is the main concern I have had about Ebola from the beginning. It is beyond me why anyone who looked at the serious nature of this disease and considered the risk from the mathematics from exposure to it would have allowed anyone from West Africa into this country as President Obama did.

It borders on criminal negligence. It certainly fails the basic test of the President of the United States whose first duty should be to protect the citizenry of the United States of America.

Consider this graphic comparing how fast Ebola spreads and how deadly it is compared to other diseases in the Washington Post article of October 9, "The Ominous Math of Ebola".

There is simply too much risk to the population to not take the most basic measures to contain the disease.

If you will recall it was President Obama who stated less than a month ago "that the chances of an Ebola outbreak here in the United States are extremely low".  That statement was just three days before Thomas Eric Duncan bordered a flight to the United States and nine days before he first sought treatment at a hospital in Dallas.

The CDC

I went to law school at Emory University in Atlanta which is a stone's throw away from the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta. I knew people that worked there and had a lot of respect for them. When I go back to Atlanta it is amazing to see how much the CDC complex has grown since I graduated in the 1970's.

However, when I look at how the entire Ebola crisis has been handled I have to ask what is going on there now?  It appears as if they have no idea what they are doing starting with the Director of the CDC, Dr. Tom Frieden. It seem to be a constant flow of mistakes, misstatements, mea culpas and contradictions.

These are a few examples of what I am talking about.

Contradictions

Dr. Tom Frieden, director for the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said during a telephone press briefing Wednesday that you cannot get Ebola by sitting next to someone on a bus, but that infected or exposed persons should not ride public transportation because they could transmit the disease to someone else. Ace of Spades

Mistakes

The day before she went to the hospital with Ebola symptoms, Amber Vinson was flying across the country on a commercial jet with 132 other people.

Now the man leading the U.S. fight against the deadly virus says she never should have stepped foot on the flight.

"She should not have been on that plane," Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Tom Frieden said Wednesday after the nurse was confirmed to have Ebola. CNN

We found out later that the nurse got on the plane with a low-grade fever. Even more incredibly, it is now reported that the nurse called the CDC before she got on the Cleveland-Dallas flight and told them she had a 99.5 degree temperature and was told she could get on the flight anyway. I am a total loss to explain any of this from what is supposed to be the Center for Disease Control.


Misstatements

Frieden blamed the first nurse who contracted Ebola while caring for Thomas Eric Duncan on a "breach of protocol" effectively throwing the young nurse under the bus.

"We don't know what occurred in the care of the index patient, the original patient in Dallas," said Frieden in a press conference Sunday morning, "but at some point, there was a breach in protocol, and that breach in protocol resulted in this infection." Breitbart.com 

Frieden eventually apologized for suggesting the nurse who contracted Ebola was to blame and admitted that the agency had to 'rethink' how to combat the deadly virus.

It should also be remembered that Frieden stated just two weeks ago that "any U.S. hospital with isolation capabilities can care for an Ebola patient." With two nurses at Texas Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas (by the way, this is a 900 bed facility in a major metro area) already infected, you have to say that this is the biggest misstatement of them all from this guy.


Mea Culpas

Frieden says that the CDC didn't get it right at first but they will do it better in the future.

The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Tuesday said a Dallas nurse diagnosed with Ebola might not have gotten the virus if the response from the federal government had been different.

CDC Director Tom Frieden pledged to dispatch emergency response crews to any hospital in the country where Ebola is diagnosed, and said such a response might have prevented Nina Pham from getting the disease.

“I wish we had put a team like this on the ground the day the first patient was diagnosed. That might have prevented this,” Frieden said. “But we will do that from this day onward with any case anywhere in the U.S.” TheHill.com

It will be amazing to me if Dr. Frieden is not forced to resign soon. He makes Mike Brown ("Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job"), the FEMA Director during Katrina who was forced out after missteps in the aftermath of that hurricane, look like a genius.

The Role of Government

Many see the government response to the Ebola outbreak and argue that this is another example of why we should not rely on government. I could not disagree more.

When you have something like Ebola you need government more than ever. However, you need a thoughtful, competent government that is focused first and foremost on the safety and security of its citizens. Public health is a core function that only government can do well. This is when you need to have the structure, order and security support that only a well-functioning government can provide.

Our problem is that this is not the government we have been getting. Our government has been focused on all the wrong things. It has been more concerned with redistribution and political correctness than in true government and the safety of its citizens. 

I have written previously how almost 70% of the federal budget is now comprised of payments to individuals and that in ten years payments to individuals and interest costs will consume 93% of the federal budget. Only 7% will be spent on the traditional roles of government (defense, roads, parks, public health, education, etc).  As I have stated, a government that is not spending any money on government is not a government.

Look no further than the budget of the CDC over the last few years and how it has spent money from its Prevention and Public Health Fund.  Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana provides the facts. Jindal knows something about this subject as he used to be the principal policy adviser to the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Consider the Prevention and Public Health Fund, a new series of annual mandatory appropriations created by Obamacare. Over the past five years, the CDC has received just under $3 billion in transfers from the fund. Yet only 6 percent—$180 million—of that $3 billion went toward building epidemiology and laboratory capacity. Especially given the agency’s postwar roots as the Communicable Disease Center, one would think that “detecting and responding to infectious diseases and other public health threats” warrants a larger funding commitment.

Instead, the Obama administration has focused the CDC on other priorities. While protecting Americans from infectious diseases received only $180 million from the Prevention Fund, the community transformation grant program received nearly three times as much money—$517.3 million over the same five-year period.

The CDC’s website makes clear the objectives of community transformation grants. The program funds neighborhood interventions like “increasing access to healthy foods by supporting local farmers and developing neighborhood grocery stores,” or “promoting improvements in sidewalks and street lighting to make it safe and easy for people to walk and ride bikes.” Bike lanes and farmer’s markets may indeed help a community—but they would do little to combat dangerous diseases like Ebola, SARS or anthrax.

You read that right. Of $3 billion spent by the CDC out of its Prevention and Public Health Fund over the last five years, three times as much money was spent on community transformation grants (healthy foods, inner city grocery stories, bike lanes and street lighting) as was spent on programs protecting, detecting and responding to infectious diseases and other public health threats.

If that is not putting politics above public health I don't know what it is.

The problem is not government, it is the current government and leaders we have. It is having the wrong priorities and the wrong policies.

The Fourth Turning

I have written so often about the book, The Fourth Turning, that I am sure many of my readers are sick of me writing about it.

However, once again, William Strauss and Neil Howe seem prescient on what lies ahead. This is what they wrote in 1997 about a possible crisis scenario that could await us in "The Fourth Turning".

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention announce the spread of a new communicable virus. The disease reached densely populated areas, killing some. Congress enacts mandatory quarantine measures. The president orders the National Guard to throw prophylactic cordons around unsafe neighborhoods. Mayors resist. Urban gangs battle suburban militias. Calls mount for the President to declare martial law. (Page 273)

Ben Franklin said that "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." I guess someone forgot about that along the way in our government.

Keep in mind that there were a long string of decisions by "the government" that were made along the way that could have prevented the situation we are in today. We could have banned anyone from West Africa from entering the country beginning a month ago. In fact, this article indicates that Duncan should never been issued a tourist visa to begin with based on his profile-unemployed, single, and sister living in the U.S-because the odds were strong that he would overstay his visa and become another illegal immigrant. We could have spent money on Ebola prevention at the CDC rather than bike paths and farmers markets in urban areas. We could have made sure the nurses at Texas Presbyterian had the equipment and training to treat Duncan. The list is long.

Just another example of why we need to return to the founding principles set forth by our founding fathers that focused government on government.

I just hope my ruminations about Ebola can end soon and we can hold off any ruin. If not, more and more people will rue the day that Barack Obama was elected President of the United States.