Motivated Reasoning

 Mark Penn is a terrible political adviser, precisely because he tends to see in his poll results exactly what he wanted to see before he asked the questions. In his piece for the Times today, he measures some very real things, but his causation is all messed up.

A few examples. 

- He says that inflation and fuel prices are upsetting Americans. This is true, but then he says Biden should greenlight the Keystone Pipeline. Keystone will not help fuel prices in any meaningful way by November, probably not even November 2024. Also "continuing to let gas prices surge" is a weird way to put things. Gas prices are largely beyond the ability of a president to control, as it's a global market.

- Balancing the budget is a sound bite, not a legitimate policy prescription. Ideally, yes, Biden could balance the budget. As it is, he's reduced the budget deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars. If you're a voter who believes in a balanced budget, the last thing you should do is vote for Republicans. The general perception is that Republicans are budget hawks, but the reality is that they are absolutely terrible with budget discipline.

- He must "beat Putin," but I guess while also bringing down fuel prices? And no figure on the international stage aside from Zelenskyy has done more to hurt Russia in Ukraine than Biden.

- Crime. There's a perception that crime is out of control. It's not exactly, but that's the perception. It is rising, but we don't know whether or not that's a byproduct of the pandemic or not.

- Ah, yes. The pandemic. Oddly, this really doesn't appear anywhere in Penn's piece. The pandemic is at the root of inflation, general unease, worries about schools and energy costs. It may be that "ending" the pandemic now will let things get back to a more normal status by November, but the perception might not have cemented itself among voters in time.

- Immigration is a bit of a tricky issue, but only because it's so easy for Republicans to demagogue it. 

Finally, there is no way to measure exactly how much the batshit insanity of the current GOP will weigh on the electorate, especially in Senate races. The baked-in partisanship could really mess with the usual dynamics of the midterms. We shall see.

Democrats absolutely need to start campaigning better. But Penn is selling doom and that's not helpful either.