Joho the Blog
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December 03, 2006
Few women Democratic challengers won. This session is trying to figure out why. There are about 25 people in the session, more women than men. Marc Laitin of Wired for Change will present data he's gathered. Then the group will put forward cases and hypotheses so that Marc can adjust his statistical model. The aim is to figure out why women did so badly, because, as Jackie Bray says, the solution can't be to run more men. Marc's data show there was definitely a skew against women challengers. But is this what always goes on? There's some historical analysis that shows, surprisingly, that being a female has not worked against candidates. If so, then something was going on this year. This year women raised more money than man. But women did even worse in close elections. The discussion is often arcane (to me) about political factors I've never heard of. Some I do understand: Was security the dominant issue in these issues? Did the National Repulican Congressional Committee target these races? Was the advertising especially negative? Were conservative Democratic women recruited? Were women with particular types of credentials recruited? How many had held office before? What do the campaigns say were the causes of their loss? Are there commonalities among the voters? Did women fare worse with independents? Is there any correlatio wit the Republican women who lost? Anything about the primary? Many many more factors are raised... I ask if statistical analysis is the right way to go given the relatively small sample and the number of possible influences. Marc (who has an admirably warm and serious demeanor) answers that there's plenty of qualitative work to do, and it's undoubtedly being done, but statistical analysis may surface information otherwise hidden. Jackie ends by saying that the women's loss is a part of the story we need to be telling. Fascinating. [Tags: rootscamp rootscampdc politics women democrats] Posted
by D. Weinberger at December 3, 2006 01:46 PM
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Comments
Let's also insert women winners into the statistics. For example, brand new Congressperson Carol Shea-Porter of NH, who based her campaign on Gladwell's The Tipping Point and came from 20 points behind to whup an opponent who outspent her five to one. The Globe has more on her victory here: http://www.boston.com/news/local/new_hampshire/articles/2006/11/08/carol_shea_porters_unusual_journey_to_us_congress/
Posted by: Betsy Devine | December 3, 2006 05:04 PM
Yes, the winners' data is being factored in, as well.
I was hoping you'd make it down to this event, Betsy. And I turned to you first, of course, for interpretaton of the NH phone jamming case semi-resolution.
Posted by: David Weinberger | December 3, 2006 05:20 PM
In AZ District 1 the woman challenger was a carpetbagger and a lawyer. Those two factors were the biggest factors in my voting against her, not her being female. The party and the primary simply picked a bad candidate. There was another candidate in the primary who had lived in the district for 20 plus years and was someone I was willing to consider based on their campaign and local understanding, but when that candidate lost the primary they lost my vote.
Running a bad candidate can be a major factor that needs to be considered in addition to the issues you mention. (But then maybe it was discussed)
Posted by: Thomas | December 4, 2006 01:44 PM
Yes,of course the quality of the candidates could be a factor, and it was discussed, as was the questions of what sorts of weaknesses they might have had and what factors might have contributed to the quality of the women candidates being lower than that of the men(if indeed the quality was lower).
Posted by: David Weinberger | December 4, 2006 06:01 PM
see our 3 1/2 yr. grassroots campaign for hillary at www.hillarynow.com
Posted by: bob kunst | February 2, 2007 12:45 PM