Posts by BenWilson
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Polity: Meet the middle, in reply to chris,
I guess what I was trying to gauge is whether some statistical imperative is being employed as far as you are aware?
I'm not sure what you mean. Can you elaborate?
What I really want to know is how far right or left of center Labour’s policies are
Yes, I'm interested in the same question, although I can see that the first problem is even defining the terms.
and whether compiling the preferences from one of the questionnaires might be helpful in clarifying Labour’s policy position in relation to this policy center and in determining whether a shift towards center would entail moving left or right, if at all.
I think that's not unhelpful, but personally I'm working with the data set itself from the same site. Those summaries are good if you just want to get an idea about how the whole group felt on each question. But with the data you get how each respondent answered each question, so you can look at the correlation between questions, clustering into groups, etc. You have to be able to load in the data and manipulate it, though. It's an SPSS file, that I loaded into R.
The overriding assumption throughout this discussion from all sides, including the post you just linked me to seems to be that a centering of Labour must entail it moving right
I think the only way that could be false would be if Labour was on or to the right of the center. So the question about whether that is true is interesting, and to answer it numerically requires a sound definition of left vs right. Getting that definition doesn't solve whether they should actually move, it just helps us understand where they are and what that move would actually be. The moral/practical question about whether they should move is another matter.
I can’t see much in the way of solid data being presented here to affirm that other than Labour traditionally equals left, people assume that to be the case, and they lost some elections.
I think the data pretty clearly shows that most people think Labour is on the left and National is on the right. Brent asked a very tricky question about the extent to which the same people actually think that or whether something else is at play. The data is there to answer the question and I will certainly try.
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Polity: Meet the middle, in reply to chris,
why has Rob begun the discussion in the centre looking outwards instead of beginning on the perimeter and analysing policy and other preferences with the clear intent of working towards majority?
I don't know. Probably best to address that question to him. I'd say he feels there's strong evidence that centrist strategy works, in direct contrast to many claims that it's wrong on first principles. I already gave my take on the earlier thread about the worth of the strategy.
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Polity: Meet the middle, in reply to HORansome,
I think subtweeting is very much about intention rather than the practicalities.
Yup. I was actually jesting anyway. I didn’t expect you-know-who to take offense. I didn’t know subtweeting could be done outside twitter.
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Polity: Meet the middle, in reply to chris,
I’d like to see this expanded upon actually:
Yes, that's all true. I was subconsciously subsetting on people who are prolific in their opinions online.
a case of a few words painting a thousand pictures
Yes, words are sometimes the better tool, although in that case I think that it probably only actually works because of the visual image that is conjured in the mind, which is specific to an audience that knows what the maps of this part of the world look like. Anyone else would have had to go to a visual to get what I meant. But then again, there's one for every part of the world, and many are even more striking. Rome is between New York and Boston. Even worse - the North Pole is close to everywhere on the planet if you take only longitude into account. Or sometimes the moon is closer to us than Europe, if you don't take altitude into account. And my fortune, rounded to nearest billion, is the same as John Key's.
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Polity: Meet the middle, in reply to giovanni tiso,
Agreed. What I meant is that you can't subtweet someone who doesn't follow you, can you? Whether or not it's rude to subtweet those who do...which I...um....don't really have much of an opinion on, not being that much of a twitterphile.
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Mike Hosking has a confused and self-serving column
...at all times.
Why did she move on? I understand the final shot, but not the move. Mostly because I'm not paying attention, though. What's she moving to? -
Polity: Meet the middle, in reply to giovanni tiso,
Whether its subtweeting is surely about whether they follow you, rather than whether you follow them?
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Polity: Meet the middle, in reply to David Hood,
To further complicate it, I think it would be a mistake to treat non-voting as one destination.
Yes, you can jump off the swing anywhere. Also, you can jump back on the swing, from anywhere.
ETA: Presumably this means that you can also move around off the swing as well as on it.
ETA2: I'm not sure if this is an unacceptably mixed metaphor. Maybe swing voting is actually more like swing mooring, rather than swinging in a playground. As in the boat is attached to the mooring, but will swing with the tide.
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Polity: Meet the middle, in reply to Russell Brown,
I’m happier when there’s plenty of debate and no snark
On this topic that's a big ask. I'm amazed it's as civil as it has been. We are, after all, talking about the most hotly contested political competition in the country, and how it should best be won. To maintain an aloof abstraction about it is only possible if you:
1. Don't actually care, or
2. Are naturally aloof, or
3. Are carefully maintaining aloofness for whatever reason.I'm 3 myself. The reason is, because it's a debate worth having, because it's constantly being had elsewhere, with a lot of heat and little light. Maybe we can do better. It needn't be a repeat of the same debate on countless other sites, with all the usual suspects dominating. Perhaps at least some new information and analysis might make this a go-to thread on the topic.
Also, my own interest is driven by not having a strong opinion. Which is to say I have considerable doubt about both sides, about both major strategies. My doubt mostly comes from a feeling that the basic terms of the discussion are not nailed down. "Left", "Center" and "Right" are poorly defined, and that means that avoiding cross-purpose discussion is virtually impossible. If we make any progress on at least that, then we've made progress generally.
I'm not optimistic, but I'm at least trying. It's an extremely complex question. Perhaps precision is impossible. If so, I think that a data driven discussion is also impossible, and the whole thing comes down to shouting. So I'm just working on the assumption that this is not the case, because it's the only hopeful position, since I'm not optimistic about my chances of shouting down the Internet.
Even if we do nail down the most basic terms under discussion, that isn't going to solve the problem in itself. After that comes evidence about the strategies and how they've worked out. We've got plenty of anecdotes...anecdotes for Africa are like coals to Newcastle (and cliches for Hollywood) in this debate.
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Polity: Meet the middle, in reply to David Hood,
It is an open system with people moving into did not vote land.
Yes, the swinging voter can jump off the swing. I'm interested in the possibility that that is the more likely outcome, that being determined to vote but unsure of who to vote for might seem less rational to a lot of people. I'm one of them, a swinging voter that has voted in every election (with the exception of the one where I was living abroad). But more of the people I know who change the way they vote do it by not-voting. I'll have to dig into the data a bit deeper to see whether I'm atypical, or my friends are.
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