Nate Silver: What Obama Left on the Table

[Laura PourMeADrink]

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/

August 1, 2011, 9:44 PM
What the White House Left on the Table
By NATE SILVER
I wrote at length earlier Monday about why I think the proper characterization of the deal that President Obama struck with Republicans is “pretty bad” rather than “terrible.” (That’s from a Democratic point of view. For Republicans, I’d say the deal should be thought of as “quite good” rather than “awesome.”)

It seems as if the results of the House’s vote on Monday tend to back up that assertion. In the end, exactly half of the Democratic caucus members voted for the debt ceiling bill, which makes it hard to classify the deal as “terrible” from their point of view.

But almost three-quarters of Republicans voted in the affirmative. And even the Tea Party came around in the end. By 32-to-28, members of the Tea Party Caucus voted for the bill, despite earlier claims — which now look like a bluff — that they wouldn’t vote to raise the debt ceiling under any circumstances.

These results seem to suggest that Mr. Obama left something on the table. That is, Mr. Obama could have shifted the deal tangibly toward the left and still gotten a bill through without too much of a problem. For instance, even if all members of the Tea Party Caucus had voted against the bill, it would still have passed 237-to-193, and that’s with 95 Democrats voting against it.

more at link

[Logical]

1. Ok, does this mean we hate Nate now? Like Krugman? I lose track! n-t

[Laura PourMeADrink]

4. funny. I think it is interesting

to look at the voting yesterday. If you watched C-Span, you could see
how the Dems were holding out til the last minute. The commentator
said that they wanted to see if the Reps could pass it on their own.
Well they didn't. At the time, I took that to mean if the Reps
couldn't do it, we wouldn't either. Not sure what they were trying
to prove.

I wonder how much of an effect seeing Giffords dramatic return to "save
the country from default" swayed some Dems?

[johnaries]

21. I don't hate Nate OR Krugman. Both are excellent at their respective jobs.

However, neither of them are Politicians. It's when they step outside their jobs that they tend to screw up.

[Logical]

22. But you and others here know more about politics than they do? Based on what??

[BeyondGeography]

2. I wonder if taking revenue out of the budget would have been possible

in the context of this deal which was all about cuts.

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

5. It wasn't wonderful - haven't heard anyone say that. But, maybe

it's not as horrible as it could have been either?

[PVnRT]

8. Plenty of people here are trying to paint it as an amazing Obama victory

[LiberalFighter]

6. Is he basing his assessment on how everyone voted or the deal itself?

Looks to me just on how everyone voted.

[PVnRT]

9. It is, but the vote patterns are interesting

It makes me wonder if he could've pulled the deal to the left and still gotten it through. The Democrats who didn't vote were largely the Progressive Caucus who objected to the no-new-revenues part of it.

[LiberalFighter]

13. So either those progressives

weren't listening, didn't pay attention to the material, or weren't told some of the details?

It would seem to me that when it is based on tax cuts expiring 12/31/12 that produces more revenue.
And revenue-raising tax reform is also included in the second phase.

Or maybe some of them if not most of them knew the package and they were in on fooling the other side into believing they got almost all of what they wanted. So their strategy was to make it look like they oppose it out in public.

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[krawhitham]

10. more Rethugs voted for it than necessary because Pelosi refused to do a whip count

She wanted as many rethugs on record as possible

[Empowerer]

11. Interesting

Nancy Pelosi is the best vote counter most people have ever seen.

[grantcart]

14. Quite to the contrary

Nancy whipped down to the last Rep and told Boehner that she would deliver exactly half of the house if he reached a certain number and none if he didn't reach that number.

I'm guessing that the number was 170 as the Republicans had 174 and that's what took so much time for Boehner to get the vote done.

Nancy delivered on her promise with eactly 95 voting for and 95 voting against.

Nancy always knows exactly how many votes she has on every issue, she is a pro.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

16. Grantcart. Yesterday, on C-Span, they showed the Dems

holding out on their vote. The commentator said that they wanted to see if the R's could carry the
bill, which alone they didn't. Based on this, as well as what you say above, I am not quite
understanding the strategy here. What is the purpose of showing that the R's couldn't pass it
alone? And, why did they have to supply more votes than we did?

[grantcart]

18. In a compromise like this the minority caucus agrees to provide

enough votes to carry the bill through but it is conditioned on the majority caucus willing to 'bleed' first and there is an agreement that the majority has to reach a certain target number before the minority will step in to make sure it passes.

I don't know what the exact number that was agreed to but there is always a number.

Because the Republican House leadership is so unprofessional, and the Republican caucus is so chaotic, the minority held back until it was clear that the agreement was going to be met.

Ironically it could have been Boehner who asked the Democrats to 'go slow' in order to ensure enough pressure to make sure he enforce a small modicum of caucus discipline.

[krawhitham]

17. There was no offical whip count

Yes she knew she had the votes, but she also wanted Bonner to worry

Nancy Pelosi, who met with her caucus today to gauge support for the deal, has not announced yet whether she’s in favor of it. More specifically, the question of whether Dem leaders will actively press members is key to gauging the proposal’s prospects for success. And it looks like they aren’t.

“We are not whipping,” one leadership aide tells me. “We are doing a leadership survey to see where members are.”

[johnaries]

20. Which pretty much destroys Nate's base assumption, which was

based on the vote results. Sorry, Nate.

[LiberalFighter]

15. I'm glad she got them on record. And Boehner and Cantor will take the heat for it too.

[John Agar]

12. Now THAT is a ringing endorsement! nt.

[Awsi Dooger]

19. Pathetic assumption by Silver

"Tangibly toward the left" and the GOP midsection bolts, true to their warped values and petrified of primary challenges from the right.

You can't look at the final tally as representative of opinion on the final bill and make simplistic estimates that 10, 20 or 50 would have shifted upon a different version. They are receiving direction from above, not making individual evaluation. They were told Yes so the GOP block voted yes. With a tangibly leftward bill they would have been told No, and stalemate continued.

Nate needs to stick to rigid numbers. His models are excellent but when he drifts into interpretation he flunks as often as he excels.

[Name removed]

23. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.