Those two polls don’t contradict each other. The Pew poll asked all respondents, and the result was 53%. That’s not inconsistent with Republicans being more accurate than Democrats.
No, and I never said they did.
But by aiming his questions (in the poll design) towards Obama supporters only Ziegler is setting himself up to point at those people and laugh while a more straightforward (and to my mind honest) poll indicates that there’s not a lot of moral high ground on either side of the aisle.
Assuming of course that Obama becomes a good leader. He has shown that he is effective at running for President. He hasn’t, at least as far as I can tell, showed that he can lead in any real way. I certainly hope that he can. However I have a sneaking feeling that he is going to get in the White House, start compromising and start losing at lot of support among his supporters who seem to think he is going to solve all the worlds problems on the first day.
The amount of unrealistic expectations about the guy are huge. I have spoken with people IRL and seen posters on this board who are going to be seriously disappointed when Obama doesn’t fix everything instantly.
Slee
Where are conservatives getting this idea that Obama supporters expect him to work magic or solve a bunch of problems. Obama supporters never thought that, man. It was never anything but radio propaganda that Obama supporters thought he was a savior.
Bullshit. Only right-wingers trying to change history claim that the New Deal was not effective.
No. Check out the chart:
Unemployment rose from less than 5% in 1929 to just over 25% in 1933 when Roosevelt took office. He got it back down to below 15% in 1937. That’s very discernible.
Roosevelt then followed conventional advice and cut spending: the economy experienced its 2nd dip. Then he reversed course and unemployment fell back to 15% in 1940.
How about, “FDR fought the depression for nine years, but with only partial success. It took the massive federal expenditure of WWII to finish the recovery.”
Have you noticed an uptick in ill-conceived leftism since the election? I have, though admittedly it’s basically all in the blogosphere.
For now, the adults hold the reigns of power. Still, it’s interesting to see the first hairline fractures form in the Democratic coalition – even before Obama takes office.
Frankly, I think Obama is organizing his administration at a blistering pace. It seems that some of his August advance work really paid off.
[OBTW, Re: Unemployment. There are other unemployment series listed in the link in the previous post. But they all show the same pattern, though the levels may differ. I reported the one that was least supportive of the New Deal.]
Well, it is not just some conservative propaganda. I know a bunch of people who seem to think that Obama can do no wrong and will resolve all *their *problems as soon as he gets in office.
I certainly hope he does a good job, but I have the feeling that he is going to do one term and be out. I think this after speaking with a reasonable number of his supporters who have totally unrealistic expectations about a) what Obama can do and b) what it means to them. The expectations are so high that they are going to be disappointed.
Slee
Bullshit right back at ya, brother. A simple google search reveals dozens of academic articles debating the effectiveness of the new deal. [Example]. Maybe all these tenured economists are crazy right-wingers, but I doubt it. Measure for Measure’s statement above represents the mainstream wisdom, I believe.
Ok, but “The New Deal did a great deal to combat the depression”, seems to me to be fair if one adds, “Although full economic recovery didn’t occur until WWII.”
I seem to recall that even Milton Friedman thought that the New Deal was beneficial (though it would have been unnecessary if the Fed had done its job, in his view). Cite: it’s an odd transcript of Free to Choose (1980). The transcriber spells Lord Keynes name as “Kane”.
I maintain that there’s more consensus on the Great Depression among economists than is commonly imagined, although there remains a fairly wide area of legitimate debate.
If Obama wants, he could storm Ottawa. We could use a leader up here. We’re fresh out.
Just a note, I see that
(bolding mine).
-FrL-
The New Deal was modestly effective in dealing with the depression but it took the second world war till full recovery was made. The reason the New Deal wasn’t more effective was that Roosevelt was far too cautious and respected the conventional wisdom of the day which said that deficit spending should be avoided even in a depression. It wasn’t until Keynes wrote the General Theory in 1936 that economists began to understand the necessity of fiscal stimulus and deficit spending in a depression.
Of course after 70 years conservative ideologues still haven’t learnt the lesson and still seem to be arguing that the government should be “tightening their belt” during a recession. These were the same people who were pretty nonchalant about the massive deficits of the Bush and Reagan years. Apparently they believe that deficits are fine when the economy is booming but when a recession strikes that is the right time for the government to cut spending and reduce deficits. This is pretty much exactly the opposite of what mainstream economics teaches: i.e. governments should balance budgets or even run surpluses during good times so that they have the room to run big deficits if the economy hits a rough patch. Fortunately the Obama administration will listen to top-notch economists like Larry Summers and ignore the assorted nutcases at Heritage, Cato etc.
Obama’s appointment as Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors wrote the *Encyclopedia Brittanica *entry on the Great Depression. Under “Sources of Recovery,” she writes:
Though I’m sure Frostillicus thinks she’s just a “right-winger.”
Damn. Obama really is picking the people who wrote the book on things.
I got a good feeling about the next four years.
Everybody knows the dems had a narrow edge in congress. But they were in conflict with the executive and senate which was firmly in GOP hands. They should have made more noise but capitulated weakly. They have been a disappointment to DEMs everywhere.
Have you paid Shodan yet, BTW? Make sure you post when you do.
Romer’s point is that Roosevelt didn’t pursue sufficiently expansionary policies which limited the effectiveness of the New Deal. So it certainly doesn’t support current conservative arguments for restraining government spending.
Note that this section only talks new spending programs not the other measures of the Roosevelt administration like the decision to leave the gold standard and the new financial regulation which helped re-establish confidence in the financial system.
The Romer Britannica article is a very good short introduction to the Depression but this article is longer and more detailed:
http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/parker.depression
I agree. But it does demonstrate the point I was making, namely that there is debate among economists over the effectiveness of the New Deal.
He generously did not accept the bet. Which is good, because I was using it as a rhetorical device.