President Obama is the most moderate Democratic president since the end of World War II, while President George W. Bush was the most conservative president in the post-war era.

For more, see Keith Poole’s post at Voteview.

• Michael Lewis-Beck and Charles Tien update their presidential election forecast.

• Former White House speechwriter Jon Lovett imagines a world where the superPACs rule.

• Map of where people say soda, pop, or Coke.  My homestate, North Carolina, is surprisingly heterogeneous.  When I was growing up, we said “Coke.”

• Republicans have more, um, orgasms.  I can’t figure out if that’s controlling for anything else.

Likely not, according to Nils Petter Gledditsch, in the introduction to a special issue of the Journal of Peace Research on this topic. Research to date shows little evidence for systematic relationship between increased global warming, water shortages etc and violent conflict.

Climate change is the world’s first truly global manmade environmental problem and a firm warning that human activities can influence our physical environment on a global scale. The range of possible consequences of climate change is so wide, even for the limited temperature changes foreseen in the IPCC scenarios, that it is difficult to sort out the main priorities. Obviously, if a reversal of the trend towards a more peaceful world was one of these consequences, it should have a prominent place on the policy agenda. Based on the research reported here, such a pessimistic view may not be warranted in the short to medium run.

In other words – there are a large number of unhappy consequences that may flow from continued global warming. But what evidence we have to date (which is admittedly based either on spotty data, or studies over the shorter term) gives us no very strong reason to argue that an increase in violent conflict is among them.

As the New York Times notes, it is going to be very cold (as in, negative 10 F, temperatures in which it can be difficult to breathe) in Moscow this Saturday for the next scheduled anti-Putin protest. As a result – despite the opportunity to send a very powerful signal by having a huge turn out in sub-freezing weather – turnout will probably be lower than previous protests and we’ll see a lot of reports that – despite mentioning caveats about the weather -will nonetheless conclude that the protest movement is losing strength and perhaps even that Putin is regaining popularity.

With that in mind, I wanted to share the following post from an undergraduate(!) at Georgetown University, Anton Streznev. The post originally appeared on his blog, but he has allowed me to reprint here as a guest post:

The NYT reports that the Russian media’s reaction to the arrival of Michael McFaul, President Obama’s new ambassador, has been remarkably virulent.

In the annals of American diplomacy, few honeymoons have been shorter than the one granted to Michael A. McFaul , who arrived in Russia on Jan. 14 as the new American ambassador. It was toward the end of his second full day on the job when a commentator on state-controlled Channel 1 suggested during a prime-time newscast that Mr. McFaul was sent to Moscow to foment revolution. A columnist for the newspaper Izvestia chimed in the next day, saying his appointment marked a return to the 18th century, when “an ambassador’s participation in intrigues and court conspiracies was ordinary business.”

This is only the most recent of the vocal attacks on U.S. “interventionism” that have been coming from the Kremlin over the past year, and particularly in the months leading up to the Duma and Presidential elections. PM Putin’s suggestion that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was responsible for the December protests, President Medvedev’s threat to move Iskander missiles to Kaliningrad in response to US missile defense plans, and the Kremlin’s persistent criticism of perceived NATO overreach in the Libya operation all illustrate a pattern of increased verbal hostility towards Washington.

The official and semi-official rhetoric appears to be outpacing both reality and actual Russian policy. Certainly calling Ambassador McFaul“not a Russia expert” is stretching the bounds of language itself. But despite suggestions that the Kremlin’s increasingly harsh tone signals the end of the “reset,” the incentives for cooperation remain strong in key areas. Indeed, the Libya case reveals that the Russian government is perfectly capable of both rhetorically opposing and substantively accepting U.S. action. Undersecretary of State for Arms Control Ellen Tauscher is likewise sanguine about Russian missile defense rhetoric:

In a November speech, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev suggested talks had broken down and he threatened several retaliatory measures, including Russia’s potential withdrawal from the New START nuclear reductions agreement. Tauscher responded that these statements were part of the Russian campaign season and that progress would speed up once the March Presidential elections in Russia had subsided. She also acknowledged that the Russians are demanding a legally binding document from the Obama administration promising U.S. missile defenses in Europe will not impact Russia’s strategic deterrent, which Tauscher said they will never get.

So the recent surge in confrontational rhetoric appears to be primarily a reaction to domestic political developments. It is reasonable to expect that the Kremlin, facing flagging popularity and an increasingly vocal public opposition, will try to leverage the traditional bogeymen of NATO and Western interventionism more broadly as a means of consolidating support. However, I am skeptical regarding whether this will actually be effective.

What accounts for the rise and fall of public support for the Russian leadership over the past 10 years? The traditional “story” behind Vladimir Putin’s surging popularity over the 2000s is that it was fueled by strong economic growth on the basis of high oil prices. This graph shows the correlation between Putin’s monthly approval ratings (as gathered by the Levada Center) and the spot price for Brent oil lagged by 2 months (obtained from the Energy Information Administration) for the years 2000 to 2010.

Indeed, higher oil prices, which serve as a good proxy for Russian economic performance overall given how crucial the oil sector is to the economy, tend to be associated with higher approval levels (r = .5531). However, when you add 2011, the relationship begins to break down. The graph below adds in the ratings for 2011 – highlighted in red.

Despite the recovery in oil prices after the 2008 crash, Putin’s approval rating has plunged below 70% (levels not seen since the months after the Ukrainian Orange Revolution). The link between oil and popularity has become much weaker (r = 0.2576).

Why is this so? Consider a third factor – Russian attitudes towards the United States – a somewhat general proxy for pro-western/anti-western sentiment. The next graph shows the monthly U.S. disapproval rating (as provided by Levada Center) against Putin’s monthly approval rating:

There does appear to be a relatively strong relationship between negative opinions of the U.S. and positive opinions of Putin (r = 0.5306). Moreover, the data from 2011 actually fits the trend – recent polls have indicated that Russians have a much more positive attitude toward the United States than in previous years. Does this mean that Putin’s popularity stems more from his government’s ability to frame the “West” as a threat and generate a “rally ‘round the flag” effect than Russia’s economic growth? Probably no. The correlation may simply indicate that low levels of popularity mean that the public is less willing to “buy” the government’s foreign policy rhetoric (i.e. the relationship goes the other way). It may also suggest a third variable that correlates with both – something like “trust in government.” If it is relatively low now (as the protests may suggest), then boisterous foreign policy rhetoric is less likely to be taken seriously. Indeed, the decline in the popularity of television and the rise of the internet may be cutting into the credibility of the Kremlin’s traditional anti-U.S. messaging strategy.

It may be that the two narratives behind Putin’s popularity, the economic growth story and the “enemies abroad” story, are intertwined. The ability of the Putin/Medvedev government to benefit politically from economic growth rests on whether or not the public accepts the linkage between the economy and the government’s actions – that is, that the government deserves credit for the improvement in living standards. This only happens when the public generally sees the government’s messaging as credible. Public opinion of the United States may therefore be a proxy measure of how much the public believes the Kremlin’s narrative generally, particularly since the growth and foreign policy messages are often mixed (Putin has tended to link Russia’s economic resurgence to its “sovereign democracy” and its “regained” influence and independence on the international stage). In this case, there may be an interaction between the two variables – high levels of growth (oil prices) translate into higher levels of support for Putin if U.S. disapproval is also high.

The table below gives the results of a series of linear regressions with approval rating as the dependent variable:

Independent Variable	1 – no 2011	2 – include 2011	3 – include 2011	4 – include 2011
Lagged DV	0.6064***	0.7399***	0.7346***	0.7240***
	(8.83)	(12.55)	(9.40)	(9.35)
Brent Oil Price – Lag 2 Mo.	0.0519***	0.0142	0.0024	-0.0678
	(3.51)	(1.25)	(0.16)	(-1.55)
U.S. Disapproval			0.1297**	-0.0080
			(2.35)	(-0.08)
Interaction Effect				0.0020*
				(1.71)
Constant	27.3272***	18.8144***	15.2262***	20.7430***
	(5.59)	(4.32)	(2.85)	(3.35)
Adjusted R^2	0.5680	0.5639	0.6640	0.6727
Num. of observations	126	137	76	76

T-values in parentheses. * = 90% significance, ** = 95% significance, *** = 99%+ significance

I included a lagged dependent variable in each regression to account for autocorrelation. The first three regressions generally confirm the argument made in the previous graphs – approval rating correlates with both oil prices and U.S. disapproval through 2001-2010 but U.S. disapproval is the better predictor when including 2011. However, regression number four is interesting. The interaction effect is significant and positive at the 90% level, giving some limited support to the above hypothesis.

Of course the “story time” part of this analysis is getting far ahead of the data – 90% significance is a relatively low bar and the accuracy of many of the proxies and assumptions that I’m using is questionable. Oil prices may not be the best measure of economic performance (per capita income is likely better, though I was unable to find monthly data). Moreover, the size of the sample is tiny and plagued with missing data. Nevertheless, this is a blog post and the initial results do suggest some interesting speculation/avenues for further research.

While I expect that the Russian government will continue its rhetoric over “U.S. interventionism,” I highly doubt that it will have any significant effect on either Russian citizens’ approval of the United States or of the government/Putin/Medvedev. It is difficult to make any meaningful predictions about the future of the opposition protests or the survival of the Putin/Medvedev tandem after the presidential elections. However, the data do suggest that the government is in trouble – it can no longer rely on a steady stream of oil income to assure public support. In fact, that “support” was hollow to begin with and confrontational showmanship is unlikely to bring it back. Stephen Holmes’ recent piece in the London Review of Books summarizes this sentiment quite succinctly:

Some of the time, at least, rulers become fleetingly popular because they are believed to wield power. From the predictable tendency of opportunistic citizens to flock obsequiously to the power-wielders of the day it follows that an incumbent who seems to be losing power may see his poll-tested ‘popularity’ vanish overnight.

This is the nightmare now faced by Putin’s team. Keen to avoid any appearance of weakness, they are well aware that public support can be artificially inflated by the illusion of power. They have long depended on theatrical displays which, however easy to stage, gave spectators an outsize sense of what the government could achieve…Can an internally warring, socially detached and rapacious oligarchy hold onto power with only a minimum use of violence now that such electoral fakery seems to have outlived its usefulness?

Bob Beatty emails:

I wanted to let you know about something that may be singular: a newspaper syndicated column run by political scientists (and one mass media prof). It’s called “Insight Kansas” and we started it a couple of years ago. Basically, it’s five political scientists from across the state, plus a mass media professor, who alternate a weekly column that is distributed to 20 newspapers across the state who pay a small fee to publish the columns in print or on their websites.

Subscribers include the Wichita Eagle, Dodge City Globe, Salina Journal, and many others. Our lineup of political scientists  has included:

Burdett Loomis – Univ. of Kansas
Ed Flentje- Wichita State Univ.
Joe Aistrup – Kansas State University
Chapman Rackaway – Fort Hays State University
Michael Smith – Emporia State University
Bob Beatty – Washburn University
Gwyn Mellinger – (Mass Media, Baker University)

The columns are available here.

The Insight Kansas gang also holds symposia every semester with our columnists and the columns have generated quite a bit of reaction from policymakers at various times, both privately and publicly.

Mitt Romney’s focus is on “middle-income Americans” because “these are the people who’ve been most badly hurt during the Obama years”; they’re “the folks who are really struggling right now.”

Here is a rough test of Romney’s claim. Caveats follow the jump.

I’m interpreting “the Obama years” literally, comparing the most recent income figures with those from 2008, George W. Bush’s last year in office. I have argued elsewhere that new presidents should not be considered responsible for transition years, since their policies generally require some time to take effect.

The Census Bureau’s most recent data are from 2010; comparable data from 2011 will not be released until next fall.

These figures do not reflect changes in taxes or the value of non-cash benefits, so they miss part of the “very ample safety net” that makes Romney so sanguine about the status of “the very poor.” The Census Bureau stopped reporting broader measures of income a decade ago; the Congressional Budget Office periodically reports on the post-tax-and-transfer income distribution, but their most recent data are from 2007. Wouldn’t it be nice if someone, somewhere, cared enough to generate and disseminate such data in a timely fashion?

Finally, and most importantly, “struggling” is very imperfectly measured by percentage changes in real income. The average real income of middle-quintile households declined from $50,766 in 2008 to $49,309 in 2010, while the average real income of households in the top five percent of the income distribution declined from $298,437 to $287,686. The latter change is larger in percentage terms, and much larger in absolute terms, but may not entail nearly as much human cost. The average real income of households in the bottom quintile declined from $11,803 to $11,034; that sounds like struggling to me, with or without a safety net.

• Rick Hasen on Citizens United.  The c4’s should be getting more attention.

• See also Lee Drutman’s rundown of super-PAC donors and donations.

• Will the Facebook billionaires prop up Obama’s super-PAC?

• Visualization of organized violence in Africa 1989-2010.  Via Ralph Sundberg.

• The Centre for International Policy Studies at the University of Ottawa has a blog.  Via Natalie Brender.

It seems obvious that they did. He outspent Gingrich 5-1 precisely when his poll numbers were increasing. But, as is well-known in social science, conclusively demonstrating the effects of campaign ads or other media is actually quite difficult.

Thanks to some data that SurveyUSA was willing to provide me, I took a stab in this new post at 538. The conclusions are certainly not ironclad, but maybe they constitute a baby step.

A journalist writes:

I’m tentatively writing a profile of Eric Cantor, and one of the big-picture aspects of the piece I was hoping to get my head around was the question of who voters hold responsible for congressional intransigence. I’ve always been under the general impression that voters don’t usually differentiate all that much between the parties in their low regard for Congress, even when one party is pretty clearly responsible for Congress’s failings; I’m wondering (a) if that’s actually right, and (b) if so, whether there’s any reason to think based on the evidence that that could change under remarkable circumstances like Cantor et al’s current strategy: the fights over the debt ceiling, payroll tax, etc. I.e., is it reasonable to wonder whether the strategy of legislative intransigence that the Republicans have pursued to great effect since 2009 could actually go too far, and damage the Republican brand with the electorate in the 2012 presidential and congressional elections?

My response was this.  One good place to start is with David Jones and Monika McDermott, who have a book on how congressional approval affects congressional elections.  In short, when approval drops, the majority party loses seats.  I’ve posted about their work here and here.

But I don’t think their work looks at whether congressional tactics (e.g., intransigence) are really to blame for low congressional approval.  It’s important to remember that congressional approval does wax and wane, and that depends a lot on the economy (surprise, surprise).  Although congressional approval does affect congressional elections, above and beyond the effect of the economy.

I don’t know of any research on whether congressional tactics hurt a party’s “brand” and therefore its chances in a presidential election.  Personally, I’m skeptical.  Voting behavior in presidential elections is much more related to presidential approval than congressional approval, as Alan Abramowitz has noted.

You may have seen a news item in today’s New York Times (posted yesterday as part of “The Caucus” blog on the Times’ site), which noted that negative ads accounted for over 90% of the political advertising Floridians saw during the last week. Figures are courtesy of Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group.

Anti-Gingrich 68%
Anti-Romney 23%
Pro-Gingrich 9%
Pro-Romney 0.1%

Or, put another way: