Value Competition

Mutual Respect

The reflections here stem out of a conversation several days with a person whose opinion I value.  At the time it felt like kind of a nitty back-and-forth.  We advanced different positions on economic inequality, with the initiator of the conversation concerned about its growth and favoritism toward the rich, the respondent taking a MIckey Kaus End of Equality line (without crediting Mickey) that money inequality isn't a big deal though social equality is and that social equality is not promoted by compelling economic equality through making markets illegal, the initiator noting that we weren't talking about communism, and so on. I won't say who I was though I'm guessing anyone who's reading this who knows me well can guess :)

What I want to reflect on here is the way in which protagonists of the "we should be worried about economic inequality" position and the "it's not such a big deal" position can respect the other side even while advancing their own positions on tax policy (marginal tax rates, capital gains rates, etc.), unionism (a desirable force for equality?), and other political issues.

Three thoughts.  One possible route to mutual respect is the "My values are good and so are the differing values of the other side" idea.  Dynamism good, likewise security.  Individual responsibility good, likewise compassion.  That's perfectly fine.  Am doubtful that it works too well, though, when we extend it to value systems.  "The right good, the left good, the center good!" is all very well, and those of us with Daoist inclinations may yearn for more of us and in the end all of us to embrace an "it's all good" ethos.  But good luck to us in that pursuit.  It is a difficult one, not least because we neo-Daoists very readily fall into our own industrial-strength moralism against ideological moralism.   

A second thought is to employ the social equality frame that the respondent in the conversation used in an adversarial way--"Economic egalitarianism is connected to highly hierarchical societies like Russia 1917 and China 1949 and quite hierarchical ones like the UK 1957 that miss the point and compound their fundamental problem of social inequality by going against capitalism as in the USSR and China or by taxing capital income at 98% as in the UK!"   The economic egalitarian can, if not hammered by the skeptic, perhaps empathize with the other side if he/she gets that a person who dislikes high marginal tax rates and unions can be seen not as a greednik or a captive of purportedly pro-market but actually pro-rich folks ideology but as someone who has a sincere if possibly empirically wrong in a given case concern about social equality.  Likewise, the pro-market person not concerned about money inequality can perhaps empathize with the other side if he/she gets that the economic egalitarian can be understood as one with a sincere if possibly confused in a particular case concern with advancing the fundamental moral and social equality of human beings.

A third thought for promoting mutual respect is to find common ground between the economic egalitarian and the market outcomes supporter in the form of a controversial value they but not all on their respective sides share.  To turn back to the conversation: Both the other person in the conversation and I are supporters of Freud's "Love and Work" framework for understanding a life well lived, even as we would both acknowedge that that framework has a tilt toward achievement-oriented, driven individuals, social groups, and cultures, and would further acknowledge that there are other legitimate frameworks to understand a life well lived for less driven people, groups, and cultures.  Given that, we are in a position to respect the other's stance if not necessarily to agree on policy.  In particular, the one of us who is more pro-market and more skeptical of economic egalitarianism is in a position to understand that the other is not inattentive to values of individual responsibility and character, but in fact is profoundly devoted to them. 

Writing Mill's anti-paternalism into the Constitution?

Putting together a conversation w/ my son a few months ago in which he observed that social issues just don't have the potency for the red side that they used to and a paper I'm reading now that takes a Millian approach to privacy...

It would be v. cool if the U.S. at some point in the next x years gets a serious movement to constitutionalize Mill's "The sole end..." principle.   In keeping w/ the normative reticence I think is (mostly) the right way to go for this academic blog, I'm not saying what my own line on such a movement is...just saying that I think it would be v. cool :)

To justify this post as at least semi-quasi-academic rather than as the sort of MetaRexian aestheticism I do on my other blog, I'd suggest the following: A movement to constitutionalize libertarian principle would split both the red and the blue sides in very interesting ways that likely would be fruitful from either a classic Truman/Dahl/Lipset cross-cutting cleavages/pluralism perspective or from the related though different social preferences/value competition perspective advanced on this website. 

The First New Nation, part MMXII

FInishing up the draft of a long paper...have been blogging about NYT CWPs instead of academic stuff as part of a productivity management strategy I'm not sure I understand...

Anyway, back into the lists w/ a light post...

Just saw something this morning--not remembering what--on how everywhere else in the world (assume this means Europe) uses red for the left and blue for the right and how the reverse usage in the US is confusing...I've seen that point before maybe xiv times...for some reason it set me off this time...

So here goes...

The US blue-red scheme goes along with our getting first, in the usual fashion noted by Seymour Martin Lipset, to a place on social class and politics that our European friends with their more frozen party systems will take some time to get to but that is coming there just as it's come here.  True blue for the center-left goes along with that side being the side of a coherent, well-ordered, establishment of upscale people that is deeply committed to the blue team, especially on culture but on economics as well, and that has a home in major sectors of the economy and society (e.g., government service, professing, teaching, non-profits, the arts, and the sciences).  Angry red for the center-right goes along with that side lacking a coherent establishment and having to rely on a combination of splenetic cultural populism and pro-capitalist beliefs that is supported by no major upscale occupational group.   Our colors are the way the West (maybe not the world) is going; the European colors are a relic of the way things used to be over there.

Big America

Was thinking of turning my tech posts on swing states and representative states into an op-ed but it didn't feel juicy enough...what follows is a draft op-ed I wrote this morning that takes off from Jonathan Haidt's "We Need a Little Fear" piece in the Times...

Big America

In a New York Times op-ed article the day after the election, NYU business ethics professor Jonathan Haidt called for liberals and conservatives to join together in combating major threats to America and the world.  

I agree with Professor Haidt’s appeal for both sides to respect the other's fears--liberal fears about rising temperatures and rising inequality and conservative fears about rising entitlements and rising births to unwed mothers--and also with his research-based claim that loyalty to one’s group and fear of outside groups are key, enduring parts of human morality. 

The friendly amendment I want to suggest is that the way forward for a troubled but also immensely strong and fortunate nation needs to involve a powerful spirit of hope as well as a powerful jolt of fear.

Both liberals and conservatives rely on fear as well as hope.  But as Professor Haidt’s NYU colleague John Jost and others have written, there is some partisan difference between the sides.  Conservatives tend to be distinctively attuned to threat, while liberals tend to be distinctively oriented toward the positive possibilities from change.

Historically, progress in America has involved a constructive fusion of fear and hope. 

One example: In the mid-nineteenth century, the highly educated Protestants who were the political leaders in Massachusetts were impelled by fear of a rising tide of uneducated Irish Catholic immigrants and by hope for universal education and a democracy of equals.   That blend of fear and hope made Massachusetts the pioneer in America and in the world of public education for all of its citizens.

A second example: In the wake of World War II, the leaders of a Republican Party that historically had been deeply committed to high tariff protection against cheap foreign goods faced a transformed world in which America was a bulwark against the threat of Communism.   Part of the response to that threat was for the Republican leadership to abandon high tariff walls and isolationism and to join the Democrats in a hopeful commitment to free trade and to international institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the United Nations.   That blend of fear and hope made the postwar United States a successful successor to Britain as the world’s leading nation.

Currently, we face what some have termed a “post-American” future.   Should we feel threatened by the economic, cultural, and military rise of an Asia that contains more than half the world’s population, and in particular by the rise of China?

Those of us with right of center sympathies may well feel a sense of threat at the idea of American power and American values no longer having the sway that they have had.   Those of us with left of center sympathies are more likely to feel that conservative concerns about a future in which America is no longer #1 are misplaced.

The suggestion here is that all of us—especially those of us with center-right sympathies—have the opportunity now for a transformative moment.

The key insight for those of us on the conservative side to arrive at: The future power of America over the decades and centuries to come will depend on a high level of immigration to this country from around the world, especially Asia. 

The U.S. enjoys a significantly larger amount of arable, habitable territory than India or China.  In the long run of history, a U.S. that is hospitable to those who seek to come here, as we were throughout the nineteenth century, will be the world’s most populous and most powerful nation.

Just as Republican leaders of 1950 decided that the old Republican coalition built on high tariffs needed to change, Republican leaders now can decide that the old Republican coalition built on whites and centered on states with low immigration needs to change.  

For their part, Democratic leaders can decide that agreeing with Republicans on high levels of legal immigration and a "big America" vision is a better way forward than a small-bore strategy of debating policy on undocumented immigrants.

How about the political realities?   Will there in fact be a grand bargain in the coming years that is impelled by conservative fear of American decline and by liberal hope for America as a nation of universal values?

The answer is unclear.   As the Magic Eight Ball used to tell my sisters and me: “Reply hazy—ask again later.”

Very significant parts of the base of both parties will be resistant to embracing a “big America” vision.   Blue elites may be aligned to hope, but part of the Democratic base will worry about diminished economic security in a high immigration society, while another part will worry about environmental effects.   Red elites may decide that the cause of America rightly understood means embracing an America of immigrants from around the world, but many Republican voters will worry about cultural submersion of the old American majority.  

My personal sense on our prospects for our successfully working through in this decade whether we want to be “big America” is an optimistic one.  

Perhaps Republican and Democratic elites and voters alike will converge on big America over the next several years.   

If so, great.   Like our convergence on public schools in the nineteenth century and on an internationalist America in the mid twentieth century, a convergence of hope and fear that led us to embrace a big America vision would be an impressive accomplishment.

At the same time, it is entirely possible that the parties will continue to spar on immigration and related issues of internationalism, ethnicity, culture, and national self-definition.

That won’t necessarily be a failure, though, for two main reasons.  

First, the concerns of parts of the Democratic and Republican bases about a high immigration society are not without reason.  Those concerns deserve empathy, and may legitimately take decades to be worked through successfully.

Second, “big America” is only one issue, important though it may be.  

I personally hope for “big America” convergence on high legal immigration more than a political convergence on rising temperatures, rising entitlements, rising inequality, and rising births to unwed mothers.    But I strongly concur with Professor Haidt's hope for progress in all those areas, and I have no sense of assurance that the issue I personally have the strongest emotions about is in fact the issue on which progress is most possible.

What I do have some sense of assurance about—partly because of Haidt's research into morality and Haidt's and Jost's into liberal and conservative psychology--is that the way forward in the coming decade will involve hope as well as fear.

Haidt is quite right in contending that we need to draw on fear.  Yes, let’s build an asteroid deflection system together, just as he says.

Fear is a valid human universal.  It remains important and always will remain important in our nation and in all other nations.  

But we also need to draw on hope.   We need to build a city on a hill together. 

The venerable vision of the city on a hill incorporates fear.  After all, by being high up, the city is less vulnerable to flooding from Superstorm Sandy and certain other menaces.  

The city on a hill also incorporates hope.  

Compared to the traditional nations of the world, America was distinctively founded on hope.  

We have aspired from the beginning to be a light to all nations.   Sometimes we have failed, but we have always kept hope alive, and we remain distinctive today.

So, sure, let’s roll up our sleeves together and make sure we have a good asteroid deflection system.

And let’s also remember what we’re protecting and building together: a shining city on a hill that reaches for the stars.

 

 

 

 

Did the Closest 2008 States Trend Dem in 2012?

Yep, they did.  All eight of the states that were closest to Obama's national margin in 2008 trended Dem relative to the nation in 2012. 

 

Below are the twelve states that were closest to the national margin for Obama in 2008 and how they voted relative to the nation in 2012. 

 

Closest 2008 states                                Same states in 2012

(relative to 7.3% D margin)                   (relative to ~2.5% D margin)     

1) VA  +.9 R                                  -.2 R   (2008-2012 trend--1.1 D)

2) CO -1.7 R                                -2.3 R  (2008-2012 trend--.6 D)

3) IA  -.2.3 R                                -2.9 R   (2008-2012 trend--.6 D

4) NH  -2.4 R                               -3.2 R   (2008-2012 trend--.8 D)

5) OH  +2.7 R                             + .5 R    (2008-2012 trend--2.2 D)

6) MN -3.0 R                               -5.1 R   (2008-2012 trend--2.1 D)

7) PA -3.1 R                               -3.7 R  (2008-2012 trend--.6 D)

8) FL  +.4.5 R                           + 1.9 R     (2008-2012 trend--2.6 D)

9) NV   -5.2 R                             -4.1 R    (2008-2012 trend--1.1 R)

10) IN  +6.2 R                          +13.1 R  (2008-2012 trend--6.9 R)

11) WI  -6.6 R                             -4.2 R  (2008-2012 trend--2.2 R)

12) NC  +6.9 R                           -4.7 R (2008-2012 trend--2.2 D)       

 

Highly interesting.

  

Why did all of the eight closest states in 2008 trend Dem this time?   

 

A second question: What about the next four states, three of which trended R?  Let's get part of that question out of the way first.  For NV, I'd simply speculate that a really awful state economy exacts a price on an incumbent pres, no matter how good a campaign and the state demographic trends are.  For WI, Ryan and a resulting home-state effect is a plausible explanation.  For the differing patterns in IN and NC, see explanation #2 below.

 

Four possibile explanations:

 

1) My hypothesis that the purplest states like the blue-red system more than the rest of us and accordingly vote more for an incumbent pres might indeed be right.  The failure of that to work in 2004 might be a result of 9/11 and the Iraq War upsetting the apple cart.

 

2) The Dems in 2004 and 2012 might have been that much better at the "Nate" or technical, optimizing side in their campaigns as well as online, where Nate and others with similar liberal values are very impressive and conservatives are simply not credible competitors.  Karl Rove's embarrassing Election night meltdown questioning the tech of the Fox News people in calling OH for Obama can be seen as a signature moment that epitomizes the Dem edge on tech. Rove may have had (and may still have) a bigger vision than Kerry's or Obama's people, and may have been very good at getting the rubble to bounce in 2004 by mobilizing evangelicals in ruby-red land, but arguably Kerry's and Obama's operatives were just that much better than W.'s, McCain's, and Romney's in doing the tech and in executing ground games in the key purple states. 

 

FWIW, I believe that is an important part of the 2004 and 2012 story on swing state voting.  One of the reasons--along with the manifest tech superiority of online Dems like Nate to online Reps--I believe the "better Dem tech skills" story: Consider IN and NC and their differing 2012 fates.  My intuition is that team Obama got that both states were winnable in 2008 and did what it took, and further got that demographic and socioeconomic considerations made NC and not IN worth focusing on in 2012 and acted accordingly, while team McCain and Romney were a very long way behind in both 2008 and 2012 in doing the analyses and putting them into effect.

 

3) Obama, Harry Reid, etc., pandered more and/or more effectively to swing states than W., Trent Lott, Denny Hastert, etc., did.  As well as being politically unpalatable from a Dem perspective, that possible explanation is curious in public choice terms given undivided R control from 2002-2004 and division from 2010-2012...but it is a possibility worth noting.

 

4) It might indeed be right that the purplest states like a system that puts them in the spotlight, but that that leads their residents not so much to tilt for the incumbent as it does for them to have a collective incentive to keep their state's focal position.  That hypothesis seems especially plausible for Iowa and New Hampshire, highly atypical states that have invested heavily in the idea of being central to the presidential nomination process.

 

Possibility 4 in particular would lend itself to some interesting further tests...but as I noted in yesterday's Nate vs. 2008 post, one does have a few other things to do with one's life, and the time comes to move on from the election to other business...

John Henry and the Machine Draw AKA 2008 and Nate Both Predict Great

Following up on one of my Election Day predictions, I spent a while today checking how the ranks of the states in the vote compared with Nate's predictions and the 2008 results.  It was just as close to a tie as can be; 2008 did better in the close states (helped by Nate ranking OH too high on the Dem side), but Nate did better in the redder and bluer ones; both Nate and 2008 did extremely well, missing by an average of right around 2 ranks out of 51, with errors concentrated in the heavily red states in the Great Plains, the Deep South, and Appalachia. 

I dug a little more by seeing whether 2008 results or Nate (both adjusted for the actual 2012 margin, which is very close to Nate's prediction), were closer to the 2012 margins in seven close states.  Again, it was basically a dead draw.  2008 did better in CO, IA, NV, and NH, where Nate underestimated the Dem lean relative to the nation, but Nate did better in FL, OH, and VA, where 2008 overestimated a GOP lean, and also in WI, where he underestimated a Dem lean less than 2008 overestimated it.

What about possible Bradley and reverse Bradley effects?   Well, Ohio, which fits a certain image of a Bradley effect state (part-Appalachian, lots of old and working class white folks), did indeed not do quite as well for the Dems as the polls indicated compared to most states, and Colorado, which fits a certain image of a reverse Bradley effect state (lots of grad degrees) did indeed do better.  It would be reasonably interesting to correlate the relative performance of Nate and 2008 with the "racist google search" measure.  But there are lots of interesting things one could do; I want instead to do the coda to yesterday's post on whether swing states in 2000 swung for Bush in 2004, which they did not, by looking at what happened in 2008 and 2012...  

 

Do the Purplest States Tilt More toward the Incumbent in the Next Election?

I predicted yesterday that the swing states that most closely mirrored the nation as a whole in 2008 would show a pro-incumbent tilt relative to the nation in this year's election.  My preferred explanation for that phenomenon--if it indeed exists--is a psychological one involving higher satisfaction with red-blue struggle and by extension with the incumbent president in the purplest states.  But there's also a plausible public choice story in which incumbents, especially ones with Congress on their side, are better able to ladle resources to the purple states and accordingly get better support there.  Since there has been a divided Congress since 2010, while Bush enjoyed a united Republican Congress after 2002, the 2004 election is of interest in distinguishing between my behavioral story and the public choice story.

Below are the 2004 results, which kind of surprised me...based on the salience of Florida in 2000 and my knowledge that Florida had shifted to be more Republican than the nation as a whole in 2004, my intuition was that the purplest 2000 states shifted more toward Bush in 2004 than the nation as a whole...as one can see below, that wasn't true at all.

Closest 2000 states  (relative to .5% D edge)                         2004 (relative to 2.5% R edge)

1) OR  -.1 R                                                                       -6.7 R     (2000-2004 trend--6.6 D)

2) IA    -.2 R                                                                      -1.8 R     (2000-2004 trend--1.6 D)

3) WI   -.3 R                                                                      -2.9 R     (2000-2004 trend--2.6 D)

4) NM   -.5 R                                                                      -1.7 R    (2000-2004 trend--1.2 D)

5) FL    -.5 R                                                                     +2.5 R     (2000-2004 trend--3.0 R)

6) NH    +.8 R                                                                    -3.9 R     (2000-2004 trend--4.7 D)

7) MN    -2.9 R                                                                   -1.0 R    (2000-2004 trend--1.9 R)

8) MO   +3.8 R                                                                   +4.7 R    (2000-2004 trend--.9 R)

Although FL, MN, and MO did trend R relative to the nation as a whole, the other five states trended D, and the cumulative changes in a D direction considerably exceed those in an R direction (net 10.9 D 2004-2008). 

Very interesting...

We'll see about the 2008-2012 trend in the purplest 2008 states tomorrow am when the national popular vote percentages are clear.

John Henry Against the Machine

My prediction: A state-by-state ranking of Obama's percentages relative to McCain in 2008 will do better in predicting Obama's state-by-state rankings relative to Romney in 2012 than a ranking based on Nate's hot-off-the-presses election-day state forecasts will.  (I'd predict the same for the subset of swing states and also for actual vote percentages as opposed to just rankings, but I doubt I'll want to do the work tomorrow of checking out the actual votes prediction.)

I hasten to note my very high degree of respect for Nate's skills.  I don't have a high degree of confidence in my forecast--say .6--and it doesn't have any strong connection to value competition themes, at least not that I can see at the moment.  But it's counterintuitive, and that counts for something :)

My rationale...people haven't been talking about the Bradley effect or the reverse Bradley effect much in this election, but that silence doesn't mean that such effects are not operating.  Bradley effect people among us in say Ohio may be feeling impressed with the auto turnaround, but will in the end have problems pulling the lever for Obama.  For their part, reverse Bradley effect people among us in say Colorado may be feeling that the Obama administration is disturbing in its poor appreciation of commerce, but will in the end have problems not pulling the lever for Obama.  Introspection and my intuitions as a reader of the Economist suggest to me that the reverse Bradley effect will be real in 2012; I also suspect that the same is true for the Bradley effect.  Hence the prediction that 2008 election results, which control for Bradley and reverse Bradley, will do better than 2012 poll results in predicting the 2012 election results.   We'll see...

(To clarify the comments about reverse Bradley and by extension Bradley: The Economist given its endosement of Obama is not itself an example of reverse Bradley, even if one suspects that Obama's race is an unacknowledged factor in their endorsement. (Imagined internal dialogue by Economist editorial writer: "If the first black president-- who hasn't done that bad a job--loses, it'll send the wrong message inside and outside America.   Are we endorsing a black guy for a record we wouldn't endorse a white guy for?  Well...that's a good question...maybe yes, maybe no, given the issues with Mitt and the overwrought state of the Republicans."  What the Economist does stand in for, I believe, is a body of less articulate racially liberal and economically conservative voters who have not reached a clear bottom line the way the publication has, but who share its unhappiness with the administration's economic philosophy and will in the end also share its decision to pull the lever for Obama.)

A VC Prediction (and Post-diction) on Swing States

Looking back at the origins of this blog four years ago... on Election Day 2008 I made an against the grain prediction that the percentage turnout of registered voters would be lower than it was in 2004 because 2004 was overall more of a "mobilize the base" election than 2008 was...that prediction turned out to be right for registered voters (though not necessarily for the electorate as a whole)...

Here's another, less counterintuitive value competition prediction (that can also be applied as a "post-diction" for 2004, for which I haven't looked up the results):

The purple states that were closest to the nation in political balance in 2008 will do better in 2012 for Obama relative to the nation than other states will.   [Editor's note: In the original version of this post, I worded this prediction in terms of the states that are *now* the closest having a Dem 2008-2012 shift; when I thought about it mnore, I decided the analysis should be based on where things were in 2008, and thus have edited this post.]  

The reasoning: People in these states with their closer level of value competition are more comfortable with a closely divided nation than people in red or blue states in which one side has to labor with the burden of being seen as less than fully legitimate; this higher level of comfort with the state of the nation in turn produces a higher level of satisfaction with an incumbent president such as Bush in 2004 or Obama in 2012.

(An alternative explanation of swing states being more pro-incumbent that will resonate more than my explanation for those with a public choice bent is that incumbents ladle resources to swing states.  One might try to distinguish between that hypothesis and the "higher purple satisfaction" hypothesis by identifying variables for resource allocation (e.g., federal spending trends) and satisfaction (e.g., polls on the direction the country is headed); an effort to use regression to see which hypothesis wins out strikes me as likely to bog down in problems of identifying whether different coefficients identify real effects or just differences in how well measured the variables are and whether they are endogenous as well as exogenous.   A simpler and possibly better approach is to compare any purple state incumbency effect in 2004 with that in 2012; public choice principle leads one to believe that Republican control of both houses of Congress plus the Presidency from 2002-2004 would have led to more swing state favoritism and a larger pro-incumbent purple state effect in 2004 than will be the case this year, given that Republicans have had control of the House since 2010.) 

 

Election Special: Which State Is Most Like America? (Hint: Not Ohio) Least?

Have my review essay to write and my grades to do…

So…

All the election talk of swing states and the centrality of Ohio led me to wonder which state is most representative of the country as a whole on a range of indicators, including but not limited to political balance. 

My method to determine typicality: a) pick ten categories with readily available ranking data--1) population growth; 2) population density; 3) African-American percentage; 4) Latino percentage; 5) Asian-American percentage; 6) graduate or professional degree percentage; 7) no high school degree percentage; 8) foreign born percentage; 9) over 65 percentage; 10) presidential vote percentage; b) sum the differences between the given state’s ranking in a category and the ranking the US as a whole would have if it were a state.

What interested me the most about my results was what the US as a whole would look like if it were a state.   As a state, the country would immediately follow Montana in population growth, Alabama in population density, New Jersey in percentage African-American, New Jersey in percentage Latino, Virginia in percentage Asian, Washington in percentage with graduate and professional degrees, Florida in percentage with no high school degree, Washington in percentage foreign born, Kentucky in percentage 65 and over, and Colorado in percentage Democratic in the 2008 presidential election.  The results for ethnicity and foreign born are the key: America by my method winds up looking a lot more like immigration magnets like New Jersey and Texas than immigration non-centers like Vermont and South Dakota.

There are plenty of problems with the method I chose…minor ones like all of the categories except #2 and #10 being based on the 2000 census because I didn’t see ranking tables for the 2010 census, more significant ones like whether to include an income measure and whether including foreign born is too duplicative of the Latino and Asian categories (maybe; the thought was that high Latino and Asian states like NM and HI may not be high immigration states), and the major one of treating states high in a category with lots of high end dispersion as fairly typical of the US as a whole by subtracting ranks rather than, say, by calculating and subtracting standard deviations… my intuition is that there would also be problems with alternative methods like the standard deviation one…that is, the effort to pick a most typical member of a category involves tricky positive issues that also have tricky normative elements, and the tricky normative issues are intensified with a US state project conducted right before (and because of) an election…anyone who wants to defend a method that can be taken to imply that California is “the real America” and Wyoming is an outlier, or the reverse, has to be ready to engage in the kind of ideologically polarizing science wars that Dan Kahan and others analyze and that my business ethics review essay touches on…

Anyway…below is a ranking of states from most typical to least typical, with categories in which the given state was similar to the US as a whole (rank difference of less than 10) or different from the US as a whole (rank difference of 20 or more) noted.

FWIW, my prior intuition was that Virginia would be the most typical.  It did very well by being #2 (and I suspect the 2010 census results would reinforce its typicality, though perhaps a bit less if income is included),  but the winning state was Illinois, which I hadn’t been thinking of as a top state.  I was perhaps too influenced by its blueness, especially in the Obama elections.  Illinois won over Virginia and the other 48 states plus DC because the land of Lincoln and Obama is an exceptionally good proxy for America as a whole in its ethnic mix, highly educated and less educated people, foreign born, and seniors.

I didn’t think much about which state I expected to be the least typical...West Virginia would have been my guess.  It came close, but lost to North Dakota.  Somewhat contrary to my priors, the outliers other than West Virginia were concentrated in America’s northern periphery (ND 51, SD 49, ME 48, WY 47, MT 46, ID 45) rather than in the heart of Dixie.

And Ohio?  It's not typical at all by my method.  Though it's closely representative in politics and percentage African-American, its sharp differences from the US as a whole in growth, Latinos, Asians, and foreign born make it the least typical of the ten biggest states. 

MOST TO LEAST TYPICAL STATES (INCLUDING DC)

(METHOD-- SUM OF RANK DEVIATIONS FROM RANK FOR THE US AS A WHOLE IF THE US WERE A STATE)

1. IL  73—similar in ethnic mix, education, foreign born, 65+
2. VA 83—similar in growth, Asians, no HS degree, foreign born, politics
3. TX  89—similar in density, ethnic mix, foreign born; fewer 65+
4. AZ  91—similar in density, Latinos, education, foreign born, 65+, politics
5. OR 92—similar in growth, Latinos, Asians, grad degrees, foreign born, 65+, politics; less black, fewer w/ no HS degree
6. NJ  97—similar in ethnic mix, education; denser
7. CA 103—similar in growth, ethnic mix, education
8. FL  103—similar in blacks, Latinos, no HS degree, politics; denser, more 65+
9. WA 104—similar in Latinos, Asians, grad degrees, foreign born; fewer w/ no HS degree
10. DE 109—similar in growth, Latinos, grad degrees, 65+-; denser
11. GA 109—similar in education, foreign born, politics; fewer 65+
12. CO 111—similar in Latinos, Asians, foreign born, politics; fewer w/ no HS degree
13. MN 111—similar in density, growth, grad degrees, 65+, politics; fewer Latinos, no HS degree
14. NY 113—similar in ethnic mix, foreign born, no HS degree, 65+; slower growing, denser, more Dem.
15. NC 115—similar in no HS degree, 65+, politics
16. MI 116—similar in blacks, 65+; slower growing, fewer Latinos
17. NV 117—similar in Latinos, Asians, no HS degree, foreign born, politics; fewer grad degrees
18. NM 119—similar in growth, Latinos, education, foreign born, politics; fewer blacks, Asians
19. MD 120—similar in growth, Asians, foreign born; denser
20. CT 126--similar in ethnic mix, foreign born; slower growing, denser
21. KS 128—similar in grad degrees; fewer w/ no HS degree
22. OK 134—similar in growth, density, blacks, no HS degree, 65+; fewer grad degrees; more Rep.
23. HI 136—similar in Latinos, grad degrees; fewer blacks, more Dem.
24. RI 137—similar in Latinos, Asians, education, foreign born; slower growing, denser, more 65+, more Dem.
25. IN 138—similar in growth, blacks, 65+, politics; lower in Latinos, Asians, foreign born
26. MO 138—similar in density, blacks, no HS degree, politics; lower in Latinos, Asians, foreign born
27. WI 139—similar in density, 65+, politics; lower in Latinos, grad degrees, no HS degree, foreign born
28. MA 143—similar in Asians, foreign born; slower growing, denser
29. DC 144—similar in Latinos, Asians, no HS degree,foreign born, 65+; slower growing, denser, more Dem.
30. PA 149—similar in blacks, education, politics; slower growing, fewer Latinos, more 65+
31. SC 156—similar in growth, density, no HS degree, 65+, politics; fewer Latinos, Asians, grad degrees, foreign born
32. NH 157—similar in growth, density, grad degrees, politics; fewer blacks, Latinos, Asians, no HS degree
33. OH 158—similar in blacks, politics; lower in growth, Latinos, Asians, foreign born
34. TN 158—similar in growth, density, blacks, 65+; lower in Latinos, Asians, grad degrees, foreign born
35. AK 160—similar in growth, Asians, grad degrees, foreign born; lower in density, Latinos, no HS degree, 65+, more Rep.
36. UT 169—similar in Latinos, no HS degree, foreign born; lower in blacks, no HS degree, 65+, more Rep.
37. NB 176—fewer Asians, no HS degree
38. AL 178—similar in growth, density, 65+; fewer Asians, Latinos, grad degrees, foreign born, more Rep.
39. KE 179—similar in growth, density, blacks, 65+; lower in Latinos, Asians, grad degrees, foreign born
40. AR 182—similar in growth, density, blacks; fewer Latinos, Asians, grad degrees, foreign born, more Rep.
41. IA 200—similar in density, politics; lower in growth, blacks, Latinos, Asians, grad degrees, no HS degree, foreign born, higher in 65+
42. VT 202—similar in density, grad degrees, 65+; fewer blacks, Latinos, Asians, foreign born, more Dem.
43. LA 204—similar in density; lower in growth, Latinos, Asians, grad degrees, foreign born
44. MS 204—similar in growth, density, 65+; lower in Latinos, Asians, grad degrees, foreign born
45. ID 205—similar in Latinos; lower in blacks, Asians, grad degrees, 65+, more Rep.
46. MT 225—similar in growth, politics; lower density, blacks, Latinos, Asians, less than HS degree, foreign born
47. WY 229—lower density, blacks, Asians, grad degrees, no HS degree, foreign born, more Rep.
48. ME 239— lower growth, blacks, Latinos, Asians, no HS degree, foreign born, more 65+
49. SD 242—lower blacks, Latinos, Asians, grad degrees, foreign born, more 65+
50. WV 256—similar in density; lower in growth, blacks, Latinos, Asians, grad degrees, foreign born, more 65+
51. ND 266--lower growth, density, blacks, Latinos, Asians, grad degrees, foreign born, more 65+