Wednesday, 11 January 2012

Cause & Effect: American politics

Everywhere you look, people confuse cause and effect.  Here's an example from the illustrious Guardian (UK newspaper also known as the Grauniad for it's predilection towards typos) in Nov 2011:


"There is plenty of evidence that the thing that really turns off voters is a divided party. Since the war, no sitting US president who has faced an internal primary challenge has gone on to re-election; every one who faced no primary challenger has been re-elected.  So unless Hillary stirs, write off Obama at your peril."


No, no, NO.  The party wants to stay in power - if there's a primary challenge, it means the party thinks the sitting president is doing such a terrible job that s/he is un-electable. It's not the presence of the primary challenger that effects the outcome, it's the reason for there being a primary challenger.  Get it?

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