March Madness for Political Junkies

Besides revealing how cool he is, President Obama’s public release of his NCAA “Baracket” selections on ESPN yesterday got me to thinking. How many of the teams reside in Democratic House districts? How many are located in districts that voted for Obama? The sportscasters can debate the primacy of the Big East (did they really deserve three Number One seeds) over the ACC and the down years for the SEC, Pac 10 and Big Ten. That ground has been covered.

If we look at the bracket through the lens of the Red/Blue divide that permeates our political discussions (I know, I know, this isn’t the post partisan change Obama promised, but just let me have my fun here, OK?) how does the tournament stack up? And, did the president calculate the political ramifications in making his selections?

First, a few observations about the President’s Baracket. Despite the punditocracy’s growing chorus about the president’s aggressive agenda, the president’s bracket is extremely conservative. Pragmatically embracing the status quo, the Commander-in-Chief has four top seeds (UNC, Pitt & Louisville) and one # 2 (Memphis) reaching the Final Four in Detroit. In fact, he’s only got the lower seed winning NINE games (out of 63!) in the entire tournament. In the first round, he’s got two # 11s (Temple and VCU) and a #10 (Maryland) knocking off higher seeds along two #9s (Butler & Tennessee) emerging with victories over #8s. He's got an entire Region (the Midwest) playing to form with every game won by the top seed. There is no Cinderella in his bracket.

Forty-four of the sixty-five teams are represented by Democrats in the House. Regionally, the partisan breakdown looks like this:

	Midwest						WEST
	School	CD	Party	'08		School	CD	Party	'08
1	Louisville	KY-03	D	Obama	1	Connecticut	CT-02	D	Obama
16	Alabama St	AL-02	D	McCain	16	Chattanooga	TN-03	R	McCain
	Morehead St	KY-05	R	McCain
8	Ohio St	OH-15	D	Obama	8	BYU	UT-03	R	McCain
9	Siena	NY-21	D	Obama	9	Texas A&M	TX-17	D	McCain
5	Utah	UT-02	D	McCain	5	Purdue	IN-04	R	McCain
12	Arizona	AZ-07	D	Obama	12	N. Iowa	IA-01	D	Obama
4	Wake Forest	NC-12	D	Obama	4	Washington	WA-07	D	Obama
13	Cleveland St	OH-11	D	Obama	13	Mississippi St	MS-03	R	McCain
6	West Virginia	WV-01	D	McCain	6	Marquette	WI-04	D	Obama
11	Dayton	OH-03	R	McCain	11	Utah St	UT-01	R	McCain
3	Kansas	KS-03	D	Obama	3	Missouri	MO-09	R	McCain
14	N. Dakota St	ND-AL	D	McCain	14	Cornell	NY-22	D	Obama
7	Boston College	MA-04	D	Obama	7	California	CA-09	D	Obama
10	USC	CA-33	D	Obama	10	Maryland	MD-05	D	Obama
2	Michigan St	MI-08	R	Obama	2	Memphis	TN-09	D	Obama
15	Robert Morris	PA-18	R	McCain	15	Cal St- Northridge	CA-27	D	Obama
	EAST						SOUTH
Seed	School	CD	Party	'08	Seed	School	CD	Party	'08
1	Pittsburgh	PA-14	D	Obama	1	North Carolina	NC-04	D	Obama
16	E. Tennessee St	TN-01	R	McCain	16	Radford	VA-09	D	McCain
8	Oklahoma St	OK-03	R	McCain	8	LSU	LA-06	R	McCain
9	Tennessee	TN-02	R	McCain	9	Butler	IN-07	D	Obama
5	Florida St	FL-02	D	McCain	5	Illinois	IL-15	R	McCain
12	Wisconsin	WI-02	D	Obama	12	W. Kentucky	KY-02	R	McCain
4	Xavier	OH-01	D	Obama	4	Gonzaga	WA-05	R	McCain
13	Portland St	OR-03	D	Obama	13	Akron	OH-13	D	Obama
6	UCLA	CA-30	D	Obama	6	Arizona St	AZ-05	D	McCain
11	VCU	VA-03	D	Obama	11	Temple	PA-02	D	Obama
3	Villanova	PA-07	D	Obama	3	Syracuse	NY-25	D	Obama
14	American	DC-AL	D	Obama	14	Stephen F. Austin	TX-01	R	McCain
7	Texas	TX-21	R	McCain	7	Clemson	SC-03	R	McCain
10	Minnesota	MN-05	D	Obama	10	Michigan	MI-15	D	Obama
2	Duke	NC-04	D	Obama	2	Oklahoma	OK-04	R	McCain
15	Binghamton	NY-22	D	Obama	15	Morgan St	MD-07	D	Obama

	Midwest	West	East	South
House	4 R	6 R	4 R	7 R
	13 D	10D	12 D	9 D
08 Result	7 McCain	7 McCain	5 McCain	9 McCain
	10 Obama	9 Obama	11 Obama	7 Obama

Tournament Total
House Delegation: 21 R 44 D
2008 Results: 28 McCain 37 Obama


The East (Boston) and Midwest (Indianapolis) are the bluest regions with the South (Memphis) the reddest. The Midwest Region has the most “purple” districts, purple being defined as a district that gave its vote to a house candidate that was from the opposite party of the district’s winning presidential candidate. Of the nine swing districts only one (Michigan State’s 8th) was won by Obama yet held by a Republican.

Obama’s 44 schools represents 67% of the field, far outpacing the 53% of the popular vote he won in November and exceeding the 59% of House districts the Democrats currently control. This might reflect the presence if many urban schools in this year’s tournament. Or, it could it be validation that America’s colleges and universities are brainwashing our nation’s youth with liberal ideology? I prefer to think it merely represents Beck’s Epic Failure to surround us.

Its clear Obama isn’t picking based on a state’s battleground status, as he’s most often taking the ‘safer’ choice by selecting the higher seed. Wonder if he’ll venture to make his bracket public during the 2012 tournament when he’s gearing up for reelection? As Obama’s picks move into later rounds, his Blue to Red ratio remains constant until the Elite Eight, when only Michigan State remains from a Republican-held district. But, keep in mind, Obama did win this district last fall.

Among the Democrats, the Blue Dogs find themselves outflanked by the Progressive Caucus. Three Blue Dogs are represented in the tournament (Utah’s Jim Matheson, Kansas’ Dennis Moore and FSU’s Allen Boyd). The Progressive Caucus, on the other hand, has lots of teams in the Big Dance: Arizona, California, UCLA, USC, Butler, BC, Morgan St, Minnesota, Wake Forest, Cornell, Binghamton, Cleveland State, Temple, Memphis, Washington and Wisconsin all play in districts represented by members of the Progressive Caucus.

Other fun Partisan Big Dance factoids:
Only two districts are represented by two teams in this year’s tournament:

• Tobacco Road’s David Price (NC-08 - Duke and Carolina)
  Upstate New York’s Maurice Hinchey (NY-22 – Cornell and Binghamton)

Thirty-two states (and the District of Columbia) are represented in the field of 65. Seventeen states (AZ, CA, IN, KY, MD, MI, NC, NY, OH, OK, PA, TN, TX, UT, VA, WA and WI) are represented by more than one team. California, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Tennessee lead the way with four teams each in the tourney. Of these 32 states, Obama won 18 (representing 302 electoral votes- including DC) to McCain’s 13 (127 EVs)

The most populous state without a home team to root for is Georgia. Conversely, the smallest state sending a team this year is North Dakota.

The only state (aside from DC and North Dakota) to have all of its districts represented is Utah.

If you’ve gotten this far, thanks for indulging me two of my passions – March Madness and political minutiae. Totally pointless, I know, but a wonderful diversion from economic meltdowns, Wall Street Ponzi schemes and Octo-Mom.

Enjoy the madness!

Sunday Muse, Ides of March Edition

Caesar: Who is it in the press that calls on me?
I hear a tongue shriller than all the music
Cry "Caesar!" Speak, Caesar is turn'd to hear.

Soothsayer: Beware the ides of March.

Caesar: What man is that?

Brutus: A soothsayer bids you beware the ides of March.
Julius Caesar Act 1, scene 2, 15–19

As if Team Obama didn’t have enough on its plate already:
· Sea level rise caused by melting Antarctic ice sheets and Greenland glaciers could inundate Florida by the end of the century.
· Could the raging drug war south of the border become the defining foreign policy crisis of the Obama Presidency?

From the Economic FUBAR File:
· Wonder what Harry “The Buck Stops Here” Truman would think of the Alan Greenspan’s "The Fed Didn't Cause the Housing Bubble" drivel?
· Does anyone else think NBC's censorship to protect GE’s bottom line no worse than Fox News' regurgitating of GOP talking points?

With campaign 2008 still not resolved in Minnesota, the politicos are already revving up for Election Day 2010. Can the Democrats break through and win a filibuster-breaking 60 Senate seats? The bigger question is, “Do they really want to?”

They could break the threshold by enticing Arlen Specter to abandon the dwindling herd of Irrelephants in the Senate. As we debate the possibility, the wingnuts at Human Events provide their hunting list of RINO Senators. You know it’s bad when Utah’s Bob Bennett and Mississippi’s Thad Cochran make their top ten.

Pure drivel from CQ Politics about the tough place Harry Reid finds himself in:

As Senate majority leader, he juggles a myriad of competing political interests. He also has to balance those against his own best interest as he gears up for a potentially tough re-election battle in 2010.

Lately, the Nevada Democrat has been putting some daylight between his positions and President Obama’s. It’s a strategy that might help him avoid the fate of Tom Daschle, who was defeated for re-election in South Dakota in 2004 despite being the Senate’s top Democrat.

Reid, 69, recently has made a point of saying he’s working with
Obama, not for him.

Right. Nevada’s voters backed President Obama last fall and kicked out one of their two Republican house members. The incumbent Republican governor is one of the least popular in the nation and the administration has moved to abandon Yucca Mountain, removing Nevada politics’ most radioactive issue and Harry Reid is afraid of running as part of the President’s team?

The analogy to Tom Daschle who ran in a Deep Red state against a very popular president riding the post-9/11 Terror Train is intellectually lame. If Reid is indeed frightened of the specter of Daschle’s defeat, Democrats should be worried about the quality of our Senate leadership.

Change I Can Believe In:
· Breaking the stalemate: Pat Leahy threatens to name names.
· Restoring the Constitution: Confounding Republicans, Democrats show they understand the Founding Principle of the three co-equal branches of government. After years of rubberstamping Dubya's policies, GOPers are perplexed by congressional Democrats fulfilling their Constitutional role.

From the “Wishful Thinking” File:
Doomsday Clock May Finally Stop Ticking

Ending on a positive note: Americans love our new First Lady.

"Socialism!" or Greed is Good

The graph on the right (from Washington Monthly via MoveOn) exposes the Gordon Gecko greed behind the ridiculous Republican chorus of "socialism!" over Obama's plan to roll back the Bush tax cuts on the wealthiest Americans.

Returning the top marginal rate to 1990s levels (when the Clinton economy boomed and we created budget surpluses) would still tax the rich at levels below those during Reagan's first term and much lower than the 91% levied during the Eisenhower years.

The combination of Bush's irresponsible tax cuts and Cheney's military misadventures has proven a lethal combination to the American economy. Trickle Down economics simply didn't work. As the rich got more, the rest received less. Middle class families have paid a high price for this failed ideology. In the current recession they have lost millions of jobs. Their nest eggs have disappeared as the market crashed and the housing bubble burst.

And the Republican response to this chaos? Cry "Socialism!" when all that's being asked of the rich (many of whom are the titans of finance that brought us to this precipice) is that they pay a marginally higher tax rate to help fix our shattered economy.

Gordon Gecko would be proud.

If There Was One Word...

This one might be a few weeks old, but it's pretty interesting to see how the public's perception of President Obama transformed between his last days as a candidate and his first weeks as president.

Pew Research asked respondents to name the one word that best describes Barack Obama. The first cloud reflects survey results from February 2009 and the second shows responses provided in September 2008 :


What a difference an election (and an economic meltdown) makes.

Jonah Goldberg: Tell Me Lies, Great Big Lies...

The latest from Jonah Goldberg provides another glimpse into the alternative reality that is modern Republicanism:

The real scandal is that this administration thinks crises are opportunities for governmental power-grabs...

...the White House tactic isn't funny at all. It's scary. Its amorality is outweighed only by the grotesque and astoundingly naked cynicism of it all.

Apparently, it's the last part - "the naked cynicism" that really irks Jonah. He compares Republican opposition to Obama's aggressive agenda to progressive criticism of the neocon's use of 9/11 to terrorize a traumatized nation into launching the invasion of Iraq.

Recall that not long ago, the first item on the bill of indictment against the Bush administration was that it was "exploiting" 9/11 to enact its agenda. Al Gore shrieked that President Bush "played on our fears" to get his way. In response to nearly every Bush policy proposal, from the Patriot Act to the toppling of Saddam Hussein, critics would caterwaul that Bush was taking advantage of the country's fear of terrorism.

The Bush administration always denied this, and rightly so. If the president admitted that he was using a national calamity for narrow partisan or ideological advantage, it would be outrageous.

Get that? It would be outrageous if the president admitted he was manipulating people's fear to advance a partisan agenda. Lying about terror threats, weapons of mass destruction and about Nigerian yellow cake is righteous and noble as long as you tell the people your motives are pure.

In contrast, look at how blatant the Obama administration has been during the first six weeks in office!

Well, now we have the president, along with his chief aides, admitting -- boasting! -- that they want to exploit a national emergency for their preexisting agenda, and there's no scandal. No one even calls it a gaffe. No, they call it leadership.

It's not leadership. It's fear-mongering.

Beyond the jaw-dropping hypocrisy and repugnant revisionist history in this article, let's just say this: Bush's terror-manipulating lies resulted in thousands of American and Iraqi dead, a bankrupt global economy and the collapse of America's moral authority. Obama's honest assessment of the dangerous economic crisis (created by his predecessor's lies) offers the promise of healthcare access for millions, a greener planet, a better educated workforce and the hope of economic growth for generations to come.

I'll take Obama's honesty any day.

In God We Trust...NOT

America, long one of the most religious of western industrialized nations, has undergone a rapid transformation over the past two decades according to a new ARIS study reported in USA Today:

It finds that, despite growth and immigration that has added nearly 50 million adults to the U.S. population, almost all religious denominations have lost ground since the first ARIS survey in 1990.

Twenty-first century Americans are much more likely to embrace spiritual options outside organized religion. Considering the theocratic nature of the modern Republican Party, this is devastating news for the GOP as it struggles to find a path forward.

• So many Americans claim no religion at all (15%, up from 8% in 1990), that this category now outranks every other major U.S. religious group except Catholics and Baptists. In a nation that has long been mostly Christian, "the challenge to Christianity … does not come from other religions but from a rejection of all forms of organized religion," the report concludes.

Check out USA Today's cool interactive graphic illustrating the nation's religious shifts. Catholic numbers are dropping in New England and the midwest. The study attributes this to the sexual abuse scandals that rocked many Catholic dioceses over the past fifteen years. As the region aborbs emigrants from across the country, Baptists no longer dominate the South as they once did.

One of the survey's co-authors, Barry Kosmin's comments must cause Republican strategists to quake in fear at their long-term electoral prospects:

"More than ever before, people are just making up their own stories of who they are. They say, 'I'm everything. I'm nothing. I believe in myself,' " says Barry Kosmin, survey co-author.

...

Kosmin concluded from the 1990 data that many saw God as a "personal hobby," and that the USA is "a greenhouse for spiritual sprouts."

Today, he says, "religion has become more like a fashion statement, not a deep personal commitment for many."

Ouch.

This demographic shift gets right to the heart of the division rending the Republican Party.

Will increased intermingling of religious and spiritual experiences lead to more tolerance in our national dialogue? Or, will conservative reactionaries see this tapestry of faith traditions as a threat to the "American Way of Life" and continue to try to divide Americans along religious lines?

The Sunday Muse, Daylight Savings Edition

Does this mean 40% of Americans are an hour behind today?

Dispatches from the 25% of reality-challenged Americans:

Has the Dittohead army scored another victory over RNC Chair Steele?

Is David Frum planting the seeds of a conservative rebirth?

From Charlie Cook:

The longer Obama is involved in the gritty details of governing, the less likely he is to regain his popularity among Republicans.

So, Republicans will like Obama again once he stops doing his job?