Posts

The secret to winning campaigns? Knocking on doors. FiveThirtyEight.com has the gritty details. In short, researchers have shown that 12 successful face to face contacts lead to one additional vote for a candidate. Let’s do a little math. 12 face-to-face contacts is one new voter who would not have otherwise voted that you personally generated. You just doubled your own vote by speaking at the door to twelve voters. Of course, then it comes down to contact rate – how often is the person home that you’re trying to reach. A very low contact rate is probably 10%, and that happens. A very high contact rate can be 50%. Average is in the 25% ballpark. On average, you’d have to knock on 48 doors to generate 12 face-to-face contacts and one additional vote. 48 doors is a pretty standard, approximate walk list. ...

In a guest post at the Freakonomics blog, economists Doug Diamond and Anil Kashyap explain the current financial crisis in FAQ form. For example, here’s the nut of the problem with Fannie and Freddie: Fannie and Freddie were weakly supervised and strayed from the core mission. They began using their subsidized financing to buy mortgage-backed securities which were backed by pools of mortgages that did not meet their usual standards. Elsewhere at the New York Times, Paul Krugman explains why the bailout plan the Treasury Department is floating is a bad idea: see No deal and Thinking the bailout through. ...

I’m fascinated by the new Genius playlists feature in iTunes. I have an entire other post in me explaining how they have changed how I listen to music, but as a developer I’m also interested in how the feature works. I was excited when I saw this button on the iTunes What’s New page, but unfortunately all it tells you is how to create a Genius playlist. I’m interested in how iTunes creates the playlists, and I don’t think this illustration is quite what I’m after. ...

Time’s Michael Scherer argues that criticizing a politician’s old votes when they’re easier to attack than their new proposals is unfair. Here’s what he says: Here’s an old political consultant trick: You want attack your opponent for supporting Policy X, because your pollsters tell you such an attack would help your candidate. But there’s a problem. Your opponent doesn’t clearly support Policy X. So you send off researchers to find an old legislative vote that you can use in an ad to mislead the public about your opponent’s plans, without lying outright. Instead of saying “My opponent supports Policy X,” all you have to say is “My opponent once voted for something that sounded a lot like Policy X. Be very afraid.” ...

In 1895, J.P. Morgan bailed out the federal government by supplying it with $62 million in gold in exchange for bonds. By the end of the month, independent investment banks may be extinct.

Best joke of the day goes to Tyler Cowen. I love gallows humor.

A defense researcher has created a hypothetical scenario that envisions how terrorists might conspire to commit a terrorist attack using World of Warcraft.

John Scalzi posts eloquently on a topic that has been consuming my thoughts lately: what does it mean with the most effective tactic in a nation’s politics is to shamelessly lie, even after your lies have been exposed? Definitely read the whole thing, but the part I wanted to quote is his explanation of why Obama should not adopt McCain’s tactics: To go back to Obama and whether he should embrace the philosophy of flat-out lying, perhaps it makes sense for him to do so, but I certainly hope he doesn’t. Not because I think it’s better to have honor than power (although I don’t think it’s a bad thing to have honor rather than power) but because I believe that someone should be making the argument that one can win an election by something other than a willful determination to lie in people’s faces, and to encourage them to cheer those lies. ...

Given Apple’s developer-hostile practices when it comes to the iPhone and the iTunes App Store, it’s becoming increasingly important for other mobile phone providers to build handsets that are more competitive with the iPhone. It looks like the best hope on that front is Google’s Android, so I was interested to read Tom Conrad’s thoughts on the platform. Conrad is the head tech guy for Pandora, the Internet radio company whose client is one of the most compelling iPhone applications. ...

Since John McCain picked a certain person who will not be named as his running mate, I’ve seen a number of politicians (including the unnamed running mate) state that Alaska produces twenty percent of America’s energy. That sounded a bit off to me, but of course I didn’t follow up. Matthew Yglesias did, though, and reports that Alaska produces 3.5% of America’s energy (and 14% of America’s oil). Factcheck.org has more on this topic. ...