I’ve been following the 2010 UK election which is tomorrow. I saw this John Ross article on the long-term Conservative decline in the UK. The Tories are likely to have the most seats after tomorrow, have a shot at getting a majority of the seats, and the bookies are expecting a Conservative victory. Nevertheless, even if the Conservatives get the expected 35-40% of the national vote, the overall trend is downwards. The Thatcher-Major era in the 80s and 90s saw Conservative support only in the low 40s. Ross notes that the recent rise of Labour since 1997 has a lot to do with the Tories being unpopular.

Also of interest is the rise of the Liberals/Liberal Democrats::

Just like the current situation in Canada, the electorate is fragmented and the major parties are having a hard time gaining support.

Twitterversion:: Graphs by John Ross show decline trend in UK Tory support since 1930. Labour seesaws & Liberals trend up. @Prof_K

Song:: The {English} Beat-‘Stand Down Margaret’ – Reference to Margaret Thatcher, Tory UK PM, 1979-1990

Nate Silver's 2010 UK Elections Prediction, fivethirtyeight.com

Above are the predictions for next week’s UK parliamentary election by fivethirtyeight.com, in collaboration with The Guardian. The Guardian doesn’t expect a radical shift from these numbers and the big question is whether the Conservatives will get a majority of seats.

The methodology behind the predictions is being challenged by psephologists adhering to the uniform swing hypothesis, in what Nate Silver calls a nerdfight. The uniform swing hypothesis states that if a party finishes x points behind their standing in the previous election, their share of the vote will decline by x points in each constituency.

“The uniform swing has its proponents, and it has the virtue of being fairly easy to calculate. But, most recent elections in the United Kingdom have not been all that dramatic, with fairly minor shifts in the vote between Labour and Conservatives. The last time that there was something resembling a ‘wave’ election — in 1997 when Labour, under Tony Blair, leaped forward from 34 percent of the vote to 43 — the uniform swing would have underestimated their gains by about 25 seats, and underestimated Conservatives’ losses by 40. And that election did not feature — as this one does — a third party like the Liberal Democrats who were polling right in line with, and often ahead of, the other two.” [*]

Nate does a good job of responding to a critique of his methodology and explaining how uniform swing is still a hypothesis. I like the granularity of the fivethirtyeight.com methodology and agree with Silver’s assertion that not all constituencies will respond uniformly to the political zeitgeist. I’ve explored second choices and the use of social network analysis in order to get a better sense of where the political zeitgeist is and I’m wondering how this could add more fine-tuning to prediction models.

Song:: Billy Bragg-‘Waiting for a Great Leap Forward’

Twitterversion:: New fivethirtyeight / Guardian election seat predictions for UK elections & “nerdfight” over uniform swing. @Prof_K

Notes from north of 49ºN

A shorter, more applied version of this appears on rhizomicon.

The above Wind Mobile commercial is for a Canadian cellphone carrier, competing with the big three, Bell, Rogers, and Telus. The humour is derived from characterizing the major wireless carriers as entities that turn a nominal charge into a much larger one with extra fees and charges. Another facet is the use of a South Asian hot dog vendor to make the point, using an accent and cultural stereotypes familiar in North America. The South Asian-Canadian population was 4% of the population in 2006, categorized as visible minorities., i.e., visibly not one of the majority race in a population.

Is this Wind commercial offensive?

This reminds me of a 2007 Guardian UK piece by Manish Vij criticizing the use of The Simpson’s character of Apu Nahasapeemapetilon by 7-11 as part of a tie-in promotion.

“Apu is quite a unique character on The Simpsons. Unlike the show’s parodies of policemen and Irish-Americans, he’s the only character to mock a small American minority relatively unknown in the mainstream, and he’s by far the most visible immigrant. For desis (South Asians) growing up in America, just one eighth as concentrated and visible as in the UK, Apu shadowed us at every turn. Until the rise of American Idol chanteur Sanjaya Malakar, Apu was the most widely-known Indian after Mahatma Gandhi. And he has that fake Peter Sellers simulacrum of an Indian accent: Apu’s voice Hank Azaria, a Greek-American, is a brown man doing a white man doing a brown man.

To be sure, Apu has many redeeming qualities: a loving wife, passive-aggressive cunning, and a Ph.D. Culture-vulture Simpsons fans have felled entire forests in arguing that he’s a parody of a stereotype, rather than the stereotype itself. But the plain fact is that most viewers are laughing at Apu, not with him. They’re enjoying the simple pleasures of a funny, singsong brown man with a slippery grasp of English.”

Manish states that not all South Asians were against the promotion, but quotes a post on an online 7-11 franchise forum::

“This is an absolute embarrassment for our company… The vast majority of franchisees are immigrants… [A]ccepting our portrayal of Apu is nothing less [than] accepting the images portrayed years ago in the US of black people with very black faces, big lips and white teeth… [T]hat image is considered racist, so does Apu [seem] to me… I cannot imagine any store willing to rebrand to Kwik-E-Mart even for a day… I am not proud to be part of this promotion.”

Some commenters on the Guardian’s site and elsewhere this was discussed were quick to say the reaction is overly-PC and that The Simpsons have poked fun of the Scots with Groundskeeper Willie.

It’s easy to get into pissing matches about who one can and cannot make fun of in a post-racial world, isn’t the real issue about cultural power, privilege, and dominant and dominated positions? Does the rise of black cultural power in the US explain why outrageous stereotypes and iconography are now taboo? While some may eyeroll at complaints by groups that point out racism as overly-PC, isn’t protesting/complaining one means of how cultural power is obtained/negotiated?

The problem is that the stereotypes often serve to reinforce unflattering or negative attitudes towards a stigmatized outgroup. So, in Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle {2004}, despite Kumar being an upper-middle class medical school candidate who speaks perfect English without an accent, local thugs use cultural power to harass him with the taunt,”thank you, come again.” Later in the film, Kumar used the taunt ironically right back at his harassers::

The lines of cultural power and privilege can get blurry. Media and advertising infuse meaning and shape attitudes, but what’s a marketer/advertiser to do? The use of stereotypes is meant to increase the efficacy of the communication, i.e., ideally the content resonates more with the audience. On the other hand, should marketers and advertisers steer clear of using stereotypes in a non-ironic way, in order to protect the brand from being labelled as insensitive? Some might say that those who take offense need to “get over it,” but before someone goes on the record as saying that, perhaps they should ask themselves how much cultural power they have.

Twitterversion:: Wind Mobile hotdog cart ad in Canada uses stereotypes to make a humourous pt. Is it offensive or benign? #ThickCulture @Prof_K

Song:: M.I.A. -‘World Town’

I found this YouTube video from the UK to be interesting, as it shows a young person trying to sort out politics and questioning democracy in light of the media and capitalism. The video description by Annika sets up the current situation in the UK {from 2 January 2010}::

“Only 76% of Brits bother to vote. Even worse, only 54% of Americans vote.

The present Parliament which first met on 11 May 2005 is scheduled to expire at midnight on 10 May 2010. The next United Kingdom general election is due to take place on or before Thursday 3 June 2010. The governing Labour Party will be looking to secure a fourth consecutive term in office and to restore support lost since 1997. The Conservative Party will seek to regain its dominant position in politics after losses in the 1990s, and to replace Labour as the governing party. The Liberal Democrats hope to make gains from both sides; although they too would ideally wish to form a government, their more realistic ambition is to hold the balance of power in a hung parliament.”

The distrust of the institutions of political parties is an issue in the US, Canada, and the UK, which causes Annika to discount the rhetoric, as well as the spin by the institution of the media. My concerns are that the political institutions and infotainment are turning people off of politics.

While the use of social media, such as YouTube and what Annika is doing, can decentralize information dissemination and foster dialog, does the attention economy bring us right back to large numbers of people going to “destination websites” and what does this do to the signal-to-noise ratio? Also, how can social media be used to foster civil discourse and the exchange of ideas, as opposed to shouting at each other?

While some may think Annika’s thoughts about democracy to be rather cynical, I think it’s a good point of departure for politicians to address the issue of why democracy does matter despite the influence of media and capitalism that can serve to make citizens feel as though it doesn’t. Particularly in the midst of the Big Recession, where government is the bearer of bad news regardless of ideological leaning.

Twitterversion:: Politics & distrust of political parties and media’s influence. Can democracy be made salient? Can true dialog be fostered by social media? #ThickCulture @Prof_K
Song:: Sparklehorse-‘Getting It Wrong’

Canadian Press/Harris/Decima National Vote Intention Poll, 15-25 April 2010

Notes from north of 49ºN.

In both Canada and the UK, voters are getting tired with the status quo and giving increasing support to third parties. We’ll see how it plays out on the UK next week with their elections, in light of the recent rise of the Liberal Democrats. In Canada, the latest Canadian Press/Harris Decima poll showed a surge for the New Democratic Party, at 20%, while the two major parties {Conservative Party and Liberal Party} have both fallen below 30%. BTW, here’s a post on “house effects” in Canadian polls, showing that the Harris Decima methodology tends to disfavour the Conservatives. I haven’t done a province-by-province analysis for Canada in a while, but I tend to watch Ontario closely, as it’s a bellwether region. The NDP is polling strong in Ontario at 19%. Apologies that some of the numbers on the following graphic are a bit fuzzy.

The NDP is polling at an all-time high in British Columbia at 31% and are in a tie with the Liberals and Conservatives with women voters. Nationally, the Greens have also held steady over the past year, dancing around the 10% mark.

Stephen Harper’s Conservative minority government is flailing in light of the Guergis/Jaffer affair and the recent kerfuffle over revealing documents relating to the Afghan detainee torture scandal.

Twitterversion:: Canadian Press/Harris poll shows spike for #NDP. Strong showing in BC and among women #ThickCulture

Song:: Julie Doiron-‘Consolation Prize’

EKOS Federal Voting Intent Poll-Decided Voters, 22 April 2010

Notes from North of 49ºN

In the wake of the bizarre Helena Guergis scandal centred around Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper and a MP from Ontario who he kicked out of caucus, the Conservatives held their ground and the Liberals lost a few points. Additionally, EKOS reported that this was the 16th. consecutive poll where no party received more than 33%. The direction of the government poll has 46.6% saying the government is going in the wrong direction and 41.4% saying the government is going in the right direction, with 12% saying don’t know/no response.

The gap in favour of the Liberals in bellwether Ontario is well within the margin of error with the Conservatives polling at 33.1%  and the Liberals at 34.6% +/- 4%.

Disillusionment anyone?

One possibly interesting pattern is the stability of support for the minor parties {NDP, Greens, and Bloc} since last October.

Twitterversion:: Post-Guergismania EKOS poll shows Liberals slipping. NDP, Greens, & Bloc with fairly steady %s since Oct’09 #ThickCulture @Prof_K

Song:: Portishead-‘Numb’

Earlier in the month, I blogged about the forthcoming UK elections and on Rhizomicon, I blogged about the first-ever debate of the party leaders. In the first debate, the leader of the third-party challenging Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg, made a strong showing. The above video is about the second debate held in Bristol on foreign affairs. Both Labour {Gordon Brown} and the Conservatives {Nick Cameron} made a point of attacking Clegg, in a bid to undermine support for the Liberal Democrats and increase the chance of obtaining a majority by winning swing ridings constituencies {districts}. Clegg seemed to hold his own. The recent polls are such that an outright majority is unlikely, unless the LibDems collapse between now and 5 May. This means that a hung Parliament is likely. The last debate will be on 29 April in the Midlands on economic policy. Get your popcorn ready. Canadians can watch on cable or online at CPAC. The other debates are archived on the link. Post a comment if you can watch them in the US or wherever you may be outside of Canada.

Twitterversion:: Second UK Debate has LibDem Nick Clegg hanging tough against Labour & Tories. Hung Parliament increasingly likely. #ThickCulture @Prof_K

Song:: The Jam-”A’ Bomb in Wardour Street’

The SEC is turning up the heat on Goldman Sachs for their role in the financial meltdown related to the subprime crisis. The Guardian reports::

“[Senator] Levin turned up the heat on Goldman by releasing emails which he said showed that, – contrary to statements in its 2009 annual report – the bank ‘made a lot of money by betting against the mortgage market’. He said the bank’s behaviour had the effect of ‘magnifying and spreading risk throughout the financial system, and that Goldman was ‘all too often betting against the instruments they sold and profiting at the expense of their clients'”.

The above video gives some background about Wall Street, what Goldman Sachs did, and questions the practices of “financial innovation.” The take is somewhat an apologist position, but it does highlight the how we should all should be wary of having unyielding faith in markets.

The crux of the matter is that financial institutions are more about sales and marketing than their own client interests. There doesn’t have to be any “smoking gun” memos. These are bright people hired to game the system. In my Money & Banking {Economics} course I took way back in 1991, we learned that getting around regulation was the basis for financial innovations. We learned strategies, but within a mantra that there must be a faith in the market. Of course, I never worked in finance and this was before the hedge fund copula formulas were commonly used, but I do know how organizations work. The bright people in finance knew what could be done to ensure they looked good, their bosses looked good, and the firm made money. Tacitly.

What the video illuminates is how widespread these practices are. In my mind, the firm and its profits took precedence over the implications for the market—market failure. In order to control for market failure—enter the ‘r’ word, regulation. Insider trading laws are all about controlling insider trading, i.e., trading on information that’s not public knowledge. The penalties are stiff. Why? Trading with insider information distorts the market and reduces faith in the market.

Should firms be allowed to spread risk and use marketing tactics to do it? Isn’t this just business -or- does it do violence to a faith in the market? Let’s see how this plays out with the SEC, the courts, and Congress. My take is that the sophistication and technology of Wall Street has far outpaced the current regulatory framework. Let’s restore the faith in the market and if this means the playing field is levelled and the paths to profits through creative chicanery are over, boo-hoo, so be it.

Twitterversion:: Goldman Sucks. Use of sales & marketing to dump risk on the market = #fail. Paving way for regulation? #ThickCulture @Prof_K

Song:: Eno/Byrne-‘America Is Waiting’

Trust/Distrust Perceptions, Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, 1958-2010

A recent report from Pew has an interactive map on perceptions of trust of the government. There are also key events that attempt to contextualize the trends, as well as charts with changes in the House and incumbent losses. In 1992, Clinton inherited slipping trust from George H. W. Bush and Reagan inherited low, but rebounding numbers from Carter.

Should we expect a bloodbath in this fall’s midterms?

I think both parties need to be concerned, particularly given the trends on this chart::

Trust by party affiliation, 1958-2010

Under George W. Bush, trust was in freefall for everyone in his second term. In my opinion, there was a perfect storm, which literally involved a storm. Katrina hit in 2005 and the conservative coalition started to break down, which I think became evident in the Harriet Miers nomination for the Supreme Court. The 2006 midterms with a surge of Democrat wins and Obama’s election in 2008 served to further cause Republicans to have less trust in the government.

Politicians on either side of the aisle should heed the antecedents of trust, in order to increase the odds of getting votes. In my opinion, negative rhetoric that doesn’t address increasing trustworthiness for a focal candidate is a danger.

What are the drivers of trust?

I’m working on a paper on organizational trust, based on the social psychology literature. The three antecedents of trust my co-author and I are using are::

  1. Ability
  2. Integrity
  3. Benevolence

These are subject to contextual constraints, i.e., the current economy and the political zeitgeist which is up in the air regarding big or small government. The challenge is to craft a strategy to build trust. In a sense, Obama’s reaching across to Republicans should be appealing to benevolence, but it’s not. It may be overshadowed by integrity and ability, which given the economic woes will be hard to convince Obama’s detractors that his policies are leading us in the right direction, given the credence qualities {hard to gauge efficacy even after implementation} of economic policy. If obama and the Democrats don’t realize that this is a battle of “communication” that needs to be addressed quickly, expect losses in November.

Twitterversion:: New Pew study shows trust of the government at only 22% and for Republicans an all-time low. How can social psych. inform political strategy? @Prof_K

Song:: KMFDM-‘Trust’

Linda Ronstadt & Jerry Brown Newsweek cover, April 1979

Meg Whitman may have more more money than good sense, despite hiring a cadre of political consultants, but then again she’s in a tough bind. She was challenged to a three-way bipartisan gubernatorial debate before the California primaries by Democrat Jerry Brown. The debate would include Brown, Meg Whitman and her fellow Republican challenger and Steve Poizner. Her response went from maybe to no, no meaning not until Jerry has a debate with his longshot Democratic challenger. All the while, Jerry has received a ton of press with his challenge.

Whitman {a billionaire} and Poizner {a multi-millionaire} have plenty of cash to spend and they’re going to burn through it trying to get the Republican nomination. Brown’s warchest is light, but he hasn’t been spending. Meg was avoiding debating Steve, but finally succumbed last month. Poizner’s approach has been to paint Whitman as not conservative enough, while Whitman tries to allow for more shades of grey on issues. In the long run, Whitman’s strategy is what’s needed to win the blue state of California, as Republican numbers favour Democrats and moderates need to be courted to win. A debate with both Poizner and Brown would be very risky for Whitman. From what I’ve seen, she’s not quick on her feet and talks like a corporate executive who spends 15 minutes answering a question with, “it depends.” A three-way debate would mean attacks from her right and her left. She would have to come across as a strong moderate that would enough appeal to more conservative Republicans and I’m not convinced she has the platform or the rhetorical chops to pull that off.

Love him or hate him, Jerry Brown is an interesting guy. When I was a kid, I remember him running for Governor in 1978, handily defeating his Republican challenger Evelle Younger. I also remember his nickname, Governor Moonbeam. He was dating Linda Rondstadt and I recall this corny political joke, “Linda Ronstadt started dating Jerry Brown when she realized she wasn’t getting any Younger.” Anyway.

Jerry made a bid for the presidency in 1976, 1980, and 1992. He was a credible threat to Bill Clinton in the primaries with grassroots campaigning and a toll-free contribution line. He also isn’t afraid to get rough. Here he is going after Clinton by making Whitewater allegations::

YouTube Preview Image

I think he would give Poizner and Whitman a run for their money and having been in politics in the state since forever, he knows the beat.

Twitterversion:: Jerry Brown throws down gauntlet debate proposal vs. the millionaire & the billionaire. Shrewd PR move. #ThickCulture @Prof_K

Song:: Linda Ronstadt-‘Blue Bayou’